Carl Shea and family (Click to enlarge)

Carl Shea, AIA

2008 Chapter President

VOA Associates

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
--Gandhi

I am Carl W. Shea, and it is my honor and privilege to serve as your AIA Orlando President for 2008.  For those of you who don’t know me, let me give you some background information. I grew up as a Navy brat in Jacksonville, Florida, and am a long-time Florida resident. I attended Architecture school at the University of Notre Dame. After graduation, I came back to Florida to work.  I have lived in Orlando for almost 10 years now and am currently a project manager for VOA Associates, Inc. My wife Claire and I have a wonderful, little 2 year old boy, Conor.

My family is the main reason I work so hard, and am so heavily involved with the AIA. Children are the future, so especially for their sake, I want to continue to work with AIA Orlando, local construction and design industry groups, and the community at large, to help make this area as successful, welcoming, progressive, beautiful and vibrant as possible. As I’m sure most of you would agree, Orlando and our State have many good things going for them, but many challenges for the future as well.

AIA Orlando reflects this complex combination of celebrating the past, working in the present, and fighting for the future. Here is your AIA Orlando Board for 2008:

Jeffrey Lurie is President-Elect, and Steve Murphy is Past President. The Treasurer is Hamid Khanli, and the Secretary is Hank Wolf. The State Directors are Nathan Butler, Rebecca Talbert, Dan Kirby, and John Ehrig. The Awards and Recognition Committee is headed by Bob Burke. The Programs Committee is run by Rick Krent. Kris Stenger represents YAF and Intern interests. Bob Miller is in charge of Public Outreach and Government Affairs. Lee Martin chairs the Charrette Newsletter effort. The Healthcare Committee is led by Bill Hercules. And our Allied AIA Board Member Larry Trobough does more for architecture than some architects! Our Executive Director Karen Jones is the irreplaceable keystone that keeps us all together, and moving in the right direction. She is helped by Allison Barnes and Jessika DeWeese.

We have many events and continuing series that are “tried and true” the Design Awards Gala, the Design Party, the Valencia C.C. Golf Tournament, and CAN-struction.

In addition to these, we have several newer committees and groups that have been added recently to address the current and future challenges our area and architectural community are facing. These committees include: the Healthcare Committee, Committee on the Environment, Art in Architecture, and the Education Task Force. The Healthcare Committee has been very successful in working with local hospitals and architects to address issues in this segment of our profession. The Committee on the Environment (COTE) has been working at the national level and in other parts of the country for years, but locally we are now seeing a growing interest in working to promote good, sustainable design. Art in Architecture is an award winning program that together, with help from local construction and real estate, will continue to bring good design to affordable housing. The Education Task Force will study bringing an accredited Architecture School to Orlando, and also work with local schools and officials on mentoring, and other architecture-related issues at the secondary school level.

And coming in October this year, our newest endeavor will be Architecture Month. In an effort to celebrate and promote good planning and design in architecture, and community enrichment, we will schedule several coordinated events this fall culminating with the Design Party on Oct. 29th.

If you would like to help with any of these events or committees, or have any other ideas, suggestions, or concerns for AIA Orlando, please feel free to give me a call, or send me an e-mail. The Board and I are here for you.

Let’s all work together to continue to make Orlando a great place to work and live!

Lee Martin
Gobbell Hays Partners, Inc.
February 19, 2008

Recent events such as BIMStorm LAX (AIA This Week, 2/16/08), are proof that Building Information Modeling (BIM) is no longer experimental software, but a useful and profitable tool for a significant portion of the profession. Those of us who are delaying implementation until it becomes practical or cost-effective had better pick a horse and get in the race. More and more, the need for BIM capability is customer-driven, either by clients needing to see aspects of our designs before cost decisions are made, or by contractors looking for quantity take-offs and evidence of interdisciplinary coordination prior to preparing bids.

AIA statistics from 2006 indicate that 46% of firms with gross billings of $5 million or more had integrated BIM into their design and construction document processes, while 20% of firms with institutional specializations had done the same. Roughly 35% of firms with international practices had implemented BIM by the end of 2006. It is safe to assume that those percentages have increased significantly in the intervening year.

Industry leaders in BIM, based on numbers of current users, are Revit by Autodesk, Bentley Architecture (Microstation), ArchiCAD by Graphisoft, and Architect by Vectorworks. All four programs feature bidirectional editing, which means that updates to one view or element of the model updates the entire file. All four feature single file, as opposed to multifile, databases, which means that project files are relatively large. AIA indicates that an ArchiCAD file for a 60,000 sf building would require roughly 30MB of memory. Initial investment in any of the programs listed would appear to be in the neighborhood of $2,000 to $3,000 per work station, plus training. Costs will vary depending upon service options and brand of software currently in use. All of the four programs are being utilized extensively in the central Florida area.

One concern associated with sharing information with other building team members is professional liability. Some current BIM users rely on limit of liability clauses in their contracts. AIA has also incorporated electronic information exchange into some of its newer standard documents. While there is little case law regarding BIM at present, many users feel that improving the quality of their documents through the use of BIM lessens their liability overall.

One of the most significant outcomes of BIMStorm LAX was the creation of massing models and schematic designs for over 400 buildings using no form of communication other than BIM models. Over 130 design professionals in 11 countries achieved those results without e-mails, faxes, or telephone conversations. Since “time is money”, that fact alone would warrant investigation and implementation of BIM as part of a long-term business strategy, and considering the pretty pictures as just an added bonus.

Lee Martin
Gobbell Hays Partners, Inc.
February 19, 2008

Spirited debate will resume on February 25 when the Finance and Taxation Committee of the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission resumes debate on the enactment of a professional service tax that would affect various providers of goods and services statewide, including architects and engineers.  A similar proposal was adopted when the TBRC met in 1987, then repealed six months later.  Some politicos vividly remember how contentious the issue was then, and speculate that enacting the tax led to the defeat of Governor Bob Martinez in 1990. 

Resurrected on a regular basis in Florida and other states, professional service taxes are generally regarded as anti-competitive by business interests, who are already being taxed on their sales and real property.  AIA Florida’s Mickey Jacobs and others, former state representative and Orlando area engineer Winston “Bud” Gardner foremost among them, emphatically made that point when the committee met on February 12, stating that enactment of the tax could potentially result in the loss of over 50,000 jobs across the state. Commission economist Dr. Hank Fishkind had testified that the professional services tax would actually be good for Florida’s economy in the wake of the property tax rollback voters approved on January 29. After hearing such  divergent expert testimony, the committee tabled the proposal until February 25.

AIA Orlando members wishing to voice their opposition to the current version of the professional services tax can do so by logging on to http://floridatbrc.org/comments.php, or by contacting members of the TBRC directly. Reference Proposal CP0002, sponsored by Sen. John McKay (R, Bradenton).

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, other aspects of the legislation proposed by Sen. McKay include elimination of $8 million in school property taxes (Sen. McKay is a real estate broker), and raising the state sales tax by one cent. According to the St. Petersburg Times, other groups opposing the enactment of a professional service tax include the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Florida Farm Bureau, and the Florida Association of Realtors.

In order to be on the November ballot later this year, CR0002 would have to pass the upcoming committee vote, then be approved by 17 of the 23 members of the TBRC (a 74% majority). While that is a tall order for even a popular proposal, architects should make their voices heard at this critical point in the legislative process.

Thanks to Mike Lingerfelt, AIA Florida Vice President/Communications, for his contribution to this article

Bill Hercules, AIA

AAH-Orlando Chairman

Perkins+Will

When the Academy of Architecture for Health – Orlando set out to elevate the collective expectation of great architecture, we chose to create a community of those key ingredients for mutual success.  Yes, the goal of the group is to create great architecture for healing.  Yes, the group is lead by architects.  Yes, the group shares a common passion for sculpting spaces around very complex functional programs.  But in order to ennoble the dreamers, satisfy the tacticians, and create the satisfied final sigh, we felt needed to reach out to other community stakeholders in tangible and legitimate ways.

Through our partnership with top-flight construction managers, engineers, and owners – yes, especially them, we have built the framework of legitimate, issue-driven, and responsive dialog.  What are the points of pain for our healthcare administrator owners?  What keeps them awake at night?  Do they trust their designer’s stewardship of their scant strategic capital?  They say “After all, cool images don’t heal people – people and processes do.”  The owners told us they want a forum to be heard.  We provided it by engaging their professional organization, the American College of Healthcare Executives, and by co-sponsoring programs, and offering them an open invitation to all of our programs, and creating a forum for public discourse.

What about the financial support from other allied professions, trades, and suppliers?  Do they just write a check to play in the club, or do they receive real value?  We have chosen to honor the commitments to the Academy of construction managers, engineers, and suppliers by inviting access to this emerging community, offering standing invitations to all programs, and facilitating network connections with hospital executives – recognizing that they are their clients too.

This approach began modestly in 2005 based on the experiences of a Houston-transplant to Orlando.  Over the past three years, through a number of ideas that both flew and flopped, we have a regular series of programs and engagement opportunities at a variety of levels, including our annual celebration of great healthcare design focusing significant issues at a trend-setting scale; our student charrette, which invites architecture students from Florida-based schools to Orlando to solve a healthcare design problem; our regular what’s new in technology forums; and the bi-directional exchanges of things that healthcare administrators think that designers should know, and vice-versa.

There are only a few local constituencies across the nation that are organized, financially self-sufficient, or engaged.  AAH-Orlando is clearly one of them.  The depth and breadth of our success has caught the interest of the AIA National Academy of Architecture for Health.  We will be sharing our methods of success in an upcoming national conference of the knowledge community this Spring, in an effort to promote the application of real knowledge at the local level, where communities live and breathe.  We also hope to gain insight from others experiences, so that our goal of elevating the expectation of great healthcare architecture is realized.

Maurizio J Maso (Click to enlarge)

ORLANDO , FL --Maurizio J. Maso, AIA, Principal and Vice President of HuntonBrady Architects, has been tapped by the Seminole Community College Foundation to chair the newly formed President’s Club Advisory Council. Maso is the design architect for SCC’s new campus facility in Altamonte Springs – a 100,000SF multi-use building; as well as SCC’s new Center for Economic Development located in Heathrow. This 65,000SF facility will serve as a business technology portal for the community.

John (Jack) Rogers (Click to enlarge)

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 29, 2008 -- The American Institute of Architects (AIA) elevated 116 architects to its prestigious College of Fellows, an honor awarded to members who have made contributions of national significance to the profession.

Out of a membership of more than 81,000, there are fewer than 2,600 AIA members distinguished with the honor of fellowship. John (Jack) Rogers of RLF, Inc. was elected to receive this honor because of his contributions to healthcare initiatives that reached thousands of people in Central Florida and beyond. To provide a safe and rewarding camping experience for seriously ill children, Jack helped bring Camp Boggy Creek to Florida by providing pro-bono design services. He also played a key role in the $33 million fund- raising campaign to establish the Walt Disney Memorial Cancer Institute, serving as chairman of the Foundation and advancing research and treatment affiliations with Duke, Johns Hopkins and Loma Linda Universities.

John P. Ehrig (Click to enlarge)

MAITLAND, FL -- Governor Charlie Crist has appointed John P. Ehrig, FAIA to serve on the Florida Board of Architects and Interior Designers.  Ehrig, a Vice President of Maitland-based Helman Hurley Charvat Peacock / Architects, Inc. (HHCP), commences his term immediately and will serve until October 31, 2011.  Four additional Florida-based professionals were appointed to the board by the Governor.

Ehrig joined HHCP in April 2007, making it the only architectural firm in Florida with three American Institute of Architects (AIA) Fellows on staff.  He has been a licensed architect since 1976 practicing in both the public and private sectors of the profession.  In 2002 he received AIA Florida’s Gold Medal (its highest honor) for his dedication and service to the profession.

The state’s Board of Architecture and Interior Design regulates architects, interior designers, threshold inspectors, architecture businesses and interior design businesses.  For more information, visit www.MyFloridaLicense.com, or call the Governor’s press office at (850) 488-5394

An innovator in architecture and a major player in Central Florida’s growth and development for more than three decades, HHCP has evolved into an international design leader with diverse projects in 30 nations worldwide.  Founded in 1975 by four partners, HHCP today has more than 95 talented, diverse team members located in Orlando, Puerto Rico, and Beijing, China.  The full-service architectural design firm offers clients a unique breadth and depth of expertise through wide-ranging practice areas, including planning/mixed use developments, themed entertainment and hospitality, health facilities, residential community and retirement communities.  For more information, visit www.HHCP.com.

ORLANDO, FL – HuntonBrady Architects, an Orlando-based architectural firm specializing in design for healthcare, education and commercial projects, recently added 8 people to its staff to serve current clients as well as provide resources for the anticipated 2008 workload.

The following professionals have joined HuntonBrady Architects:

• Crystal Smith – Office Manager
• Mario DeJesus – Graduate Architect, will work in the Healthcare Group
• Edward Thomas – Graduate Architect, will work in the Healthcare Group
• Dennis Cole, Graduate Architect, will work in the Healthcare Group
• Charlie McNamara – Graduate Architect, will work with the Design Group
• Meltem Plotts – Graduate Architect, will work in the Education Group
• Ryan Chmielewski – Graduate Architect – will work in the Commercial Group
• Butch Ellerby – Construction Administration

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ORLANDO, FL -- FLA / Florida Architects, Inc. announced the recent completion of the new Mori Hosseini Center at Daytona Beach College (DBC). FLA provided full architectural and interior design services, including planning, FFE procurement and installation and construction supervision services, for the $23M, 70,590 square foot facility, which provides new, expanded quarters for the College's Hospitality, Tourism, and Culinary programs as well as for its nationally-recognized Southeast Museum of Photography.

"This facility sends a clear message about DBC's presence as a major educational force in preparing the area's workforce in the Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary management programs,” states FLA’s President and Principal-in-Charge, Joseph J. Sorci, AIA. “The most outstanding aspect of the project is that it is a true working facility where students will gain valuable, hands-on experience in an environment that closely mirrors an actual resort setting."

"Florida Architects did a great job in designing this facility," states DBC President, D. Kent Sharples. "The Mori Hosseini College of Hospitality Management raises the bar on training within the hospitality industry in the Central Florida area. With the training opportunities that this facility offers, our program will be second to none while at a lower cost, and will prepare our students to find high-wage jobs within the tourism industry, the number one employer in this area."

The Center, which opens for its first full semester this fall, is named in honor of Mr. Mori Hosseini, a major contributor to this project. His generous contribution allowed for a greatly-increased construction budget, which translated to an enhanced interiors program with upgraded finishes and expanded technological capacity.

Bill Hercules (Click to enlarge)

Perkins+Will is pleased to announce the opening of an Orlando office, led by Bill Hercules, a seasoned healthcare planning expert.

With more than twenty years of experience in the healthcare architecture profession, Bill thoroughly enjoys the critical complexities and technical challenges by developing carefully considered design responses. He strives for high performance outcomes as a way to fulfill the mission of healthcare systems within the region.

His recent projects prior to joining Perkins+Will:

• Sand Lake Hospital, Orlando, Florida
• Bed Tower Expansion
• Florida Hospital, Orlando, Florida
• East Orlando Patient Tower Expansion
• Tampa General Hospital, Tampa, Florida
• Medical Office Building
• University of Miami, Miami, Florida
• Physician Multipractice Building
• Bayfront Medical Center, St. Petersburg, Florida
• Obstetrics Relocation

Sandy Cohn (Click to enlarge)

Winter Park , Fla. – RLF – a nationally recognized architecture, engineering and interior design firm – recently promoted project managers Sanford “Sandy” L. Cohn, AIA, NCARB, and Charles A. Hutchison, AIA, to project director positions.

As project directors, Cohn and Hutchison will be responsible for key components of client management, administration and planning, and design direction for the firm's core operation teams.

Hutchison – who is completing his 25th year with RLF – has worked on a number of military projects in Italy including warehouse facilities, waterfront recapitalization and a health services center.  He received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Kentucky.

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Lakeland , FL — HuntonBrady Architects (www.huntonbrady.com), an Orlando based architecture, planning and interior design firm, completed design of the new Joint Use Technology Resources Center for Polk Community College (http://www.polk.edu) and the University of South Florida (http://www.usf.edu/) in Lakeland .

The 125,000 square feet Joint-Use Technology Resources Center includes a large state-of-the-art teaching auditorium, classrooms for the Registered Nursing program and new IT programs, labs, offices and ancillary student support facilities.

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A key design element in the new building is a large interior atrium that extends two stories to the roof of the building.The central building “spine” functions like a shopping center with one-stop Student Services located on either side of the interior atrium. The new structure will be jointly used by students, faculty and staff from both PCC and USF.

Ed Churchill - Allied AIA Member
My name is Ed Churchill and I have been with Benjamin Moore Paints since 1961. I have held several sales and operational positions including representing the company in the Caribbean and Bahamas. Presently I am the Architectural and Designer representative. I am covering Daytona, Orlando, Tampa and St. Pete. I am looking forward to working closely with your organization.

Christine Miller SPUSA (Click to enlarge)

Service Point USA profile: AIA Orlando
Service Point USA, established in 1964, provides document management technologies, software, and printing services through networked service centers in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic region, Orlando, and Las Vegas; over 450 On-Site Services (FM) programs within partnered firms throughout the United States, and via online tools and services.

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ORLANDO, FL -- The Orlando office of VOA Associates Incorporated, architecture, planning and interior design, announced that construction has been completed on the new Fitness Center at Whiting Naval Air Station, Milton, FL. VOA was commissioned to serve as Designer of Record for the design-build project, providing full architectural and interior design services in partnership with Walton Construction, LLC, of New Orleans, LA.

According to VOA Partner, Ted G. Fery, AIA, the project is “designed to anchor all recreational and physical fitness activities at the NAS, providing much needed public areas to enhance the community facilities at Whiting Field.” The new facility replaces the existing Fitness Center which was rendered unusable due to damaging winds from Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and is part of an overall project for improvement of four other community facilities at Whiting due to hurricane damage. The new, two-story, 28,000-square-foot Fitness Center features includes a collegiate basketball court, racquetball courts, aerobic room, weight lifting room, cardiovascular room, associated locker rooms, showers, steam rooms and saunas. The renovated buildings house functions moved from other antiquated facilities, including Public Works, meeting areas, classrooms and storm safety shelters.