Senior Manager of Climate Action and Resilient Communities | The American Institute of Architects
Paola Capo is Senior Manager of Climate Action and Resilient Communities for AIA. She strives to provide architects and communities with the resources they need to create healthier, more sustainable, resilient, and equitable built environments. In her current role, she divides her time between managing the Disaster Assistance Program (assisting architects and AIA chapters before and after disaster events occur) and supporting Communities by Design, a program of the Architects Foundation that matches communities with interdisciplinary expertise to achieve community aspirations. In her time at AIA, Paola has supported several other portfolios related to sustainability and climate action including the 2030 Commitment program, the Materials Pledge, and the Committee on the Environment with a focus on capacity-building for architects, firms, and chapters.
Paola is currently pursuing a Masters in Emergency Management from Tulane University. In 2020, she completed IAP2’s Foundations in Public Participation Program, and in 2019 she participated in UC Berkeley’s [IN]City program to expand on her knowledge in urban design. She graduated from Georgetown University in 2017 with a degree in Science, Technology, and International Affairs, concentrating in Energy and the Environment.
Courses
Introduction to Design Assistance Teams
When the design assistance team program was created in the 1960s, it pioneered participatory approaches to city building. Over five decades later, the program has established a track record of urban innovation and change that has influenced cities all over the world. Learn how the DAT program has employed one of the most powerful methodologies for urban innovation in the field today – and how its component parts have been adapted and deployed globally for urban transformations.
This session was recorded live on April 26, 2023.
Back to the Future: Combining Historic Strategies with Modern Technology for Maximized Passive Survivability
Tuesday, July 14, 2026 | 2-3pm ET
In this joint partnership between the Building Performance Knowledge Community (BPKC) and the Resilience and Disaster Response Community (RADR), panelists will review historic cooling, heating, and resilience strategies and discuss how they can be used to amplify and expand the effectiveness of emerging technology for passive survivability and energy efficiency. By designing for aesthetics first, and then using modern HVAC and other solutions to overcome any inefficiencies second, we are doing ourselves, our clients, and our communities a grave disservice.
In the 1999 essay by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien called ‘On Slowness,’ there is a quote from Milan Kundara: “There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.”
The speed with which we develop new technologies to enhance our building performance increases our forgetting of the basic principles that helped people survive for hundreds of years without air conditioning and ducted heat. Building science and technology continue to evolve and advance in both possibilities for improved outcomes and complexity. The more we learn about vented rainscreens, smart vapor barriers, all in one water resistive barriers and insulation products, the more intricate our detailing becomes. High performance envelopes are exciting and full of promise even with the challenges of coordination and installation execution. Join us for a 60 minute discussion of getting back to basics as a way to further progress in building resilience and passive survivability.