AIA Retrospect 2019

Graphic Competition Entry - 1st Prize

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Influence. Leaving one’s mark. As an architect, perhaps the most tangible representation of this can be found in the way our profession shapes the built environment. Through serving on community planning boards to even helping solve complex social and environmental issues, architecture has the capability to influence how we live in fantastic (and daunting) ways.
Individuals are born, live, and eventually die in the built environment; as such, we as architects have an obligation to ensure that our influence on their lives is a positive one.
Inspiration for this composition is therefore drawn from designers’ unique abilities to use their gifts, to use their design, to beneficially influence both communities and the world.

The colorless hand, representing all architects, uses a fountain pen to “fill a void” in its community. Here, that void is represented by a literal gap in the anonymous city skyline. Finally, the dashed line building illustrates that influence requires staying power and persistence as a profession. The temporary nature of a dashed line was deliberately chosen to illustrate that an architect’s individual impact, while it may be great, is still relatively minute in the scheme of history. True, lasting influence requires generation after generation of strong leadership, working toward a common goal, and leaving one’s mark...one built environment at a time.