In the ever-evolving landscape of architectural practice, understanding and incorporating resilience design principles have become imperative. This course delves into the fundamental aspects of resilience design, equipping architects and professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to create projects that are adaptable, sustainable, and capable of withstanding a range of challenges. Through a structured approach and practical exercises, participants will learn how to identify hazards, develop resilience strategies, and integrate them seamlessly into their architectural projects, fostering a holistic approach to design. Note: The course content is based on the AIA Resilience Design Toolkit. This comprehensive resource offers an objective analysis process which incorporates financial evaluation of resilience design strategies. Hosted by the Resilience and Adaptation Advisory Group (RAD AG). Course expires 08/30/2027

Resource planning is the foundation of successful project management. This course walks you through identifying, quantifying, and scheduling the people, materials, and tools needed to deliver projects efficiently. You’ll explore methods for assessing resource availability, forecasting needs, and creating realistic schedules that align with project goals. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll develop a resource plan that supports productivity, reduces bottlenecks, and keeps projects on time and within budget.

Deepen your expertise in resilience by learning how to assess vulnerabilities in existing buildings, respond to evolving resilience standards, and implement hazard mitigation into everyday design decisions. Explore the fundamentals of hazard mitigation and retrofit strategies for specific hazards, including flooding, wind, wildfire, extreme heat, drought, and seismic activity, while addressing the unique challenges of historic structures. Each step is structured to ensure a deep understanding of how to assess vulnerabilities and implement targeted retrofit solutions that enhance safety, performance, and durability. Expert insights, real-world case studies, interactive knowledge checks, and workbook-based reflection activities make your learning experience engaging, practical, and directly applicable to professional practice.

This course takes a behind-the-scenes look at two groundbreaking projects—City Walk BHAM in Birmingham, AL, and The Underline in Miami-Dade County. Both projects were designed to reimagine the vacant land under transportation corridors, considered a physical barrier between communities, into dynamic public spaces.  Through these two case studies, you’ll gain insights into public-private partnership models, funding strategies, and community-driven and design approaches that make these projects possible. Examine how creative design solutions have transformed challenging spaces into multi-modal transportation corridors, resilient linear parks, and vibrant community destinations—improving neighborhood connections, safety, mobility, public health, sustainability, and innovation. Learn more about how the focus on health, safety, and welfare of the end users informed the design process: from the experience of the urban pedestrian to the cyclist commuter. In addition, you’ll learn about post-occupancy activation, including public programming, art initiatives, and revenue generating opportunities that ensure long-term success.  This session was recorded live on April 16, 2025.

Meetings are where ideas turn into action—but only when they’re run effectively. This course equips professionals with practical tools to plan, lead, and manage productive meetings that drive real results. You’ll learn how to prepare strategically, set clear objectives, and design focused agendas that keep discussions on track. Through real-world examples and role-based exercises, you’ll practice techniques for facilitating engaging discussions, managing time efficiently, and ensuring every voice is heard. By mastering these skills, you can transform your meetings from time-consuming obligations into opportunities for alignment, decision-making, and forward momentum.

Get an overview of the major changes to Facility Guidelines Institute’s (FGI) 2026 Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Hosipitals, Outpatient Facilities, and Residential Health, Care, and Support Facilities in this engaging and informative session, including the new chapter on short-term outpatient care facilities, the new chapter on residential behavioral and mental health treatment facilities, revised design considerations for rural emergency hospitals, updated room size and clearances for rehab hospitals, revised planning requirements for procedure and operating rooms, the new minimum percentage for single-occupancy rooms in most residential facility types, and improved flexibility to support the design of small-scale residential facilities.   FGI’s senior leadership and an expert facility architect will outline and discuss the guidelines’ many revisions in addition to reviewing efforts to improve the documents’ usability and enforceability.   This session was recorded live on June 11, 2024. Course expires 5/15/2027

Health care buildings are often defined by popular, income-generating spaces—patient rooms, operating rooms, imaging rooms, and grand public spaces. These rooms create an image that is presented to patients and the public and thus define the character of the building. But what about the other required spaces that are essential to the building’s functions? Without attention to detail, the failure to design these spaces properly will result in a building that is inefficient for users and costly for operators. Join presenters to look at the successes and failures of back-of-house rooms in health care buildings and learn how their design can impact your next project.  This course was recorded live on December 12, 2024.

Material choices made during design can affect occupant exposure, emissions, supply chains, and ecosystem conditions throughout a product’s lifecycle. Architects are often expected to consider these impacts without a consistent process for identifying potential risks in commonly specified materials. This foundational course introduces a practical approach for identifying potential human and environmental risks using the AIA Materials Pledge impact categories. You will learn how to use ingredient transparency, disclosure about material contents, and product documentation to compare products, consider lifecycle impacts, and inform specification decisions. After completing this course, you will be able to screen materials for potential lifecycle impacts and support specification decisions that align with project goals for improved human and environmental outcomes.

This course showcases the WLS 2023 kicked off with a keynote event that explores the theme of Equity x Society—the intersection of advocacy, women's social issues, and the role of the building industry. Part keynote address, part panel discussion, this experience looks at the universal challenges women face and some of the bold, brave, creative solutions our keynoter, panelists, and AIA leaders have been able to achieve through fearless leadership. Opening remarks by 2023 AIA President Emily Grandstaff-Rice, FAIA and AIA EVP/Chief Executive Officer Lakisha Ann Woods, CAE.  Panelists include Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Boston, Tiffany Chu, Co-Chair for the Boston Women’s Workforce Council, Evelyn Murphy, 2023 Boston Society for Architecture President, Andrea Love, FAIA, and 2024 AIA National 2024 President-Elect, Kimberly Dowdell, AIA. Course expires 11/02/2026  

This session explores the vital role of sound in shaping healthy, sustainable, and inspiring built environments. Drawing on research in indoor environmental quality (IEQ), behavioral science, and biophilic design, it examines how acoustic design influences human well-being, productivity, and social connection. Participants will discover how to integrate acoustics seamlessly with aesthetics, using evidence-based strategies and real-world case studies to create spaces that are not only visually compelling but also sonically supportive. This session was recorded live on October 28, 2025.

The AIA was a critical partner to the early Community Design Centers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, there are dozens of community design centers across the country. The Civic Design Center represents one important model that emerged out of local advocacy efforts and has gone on to have a profound impact on the future of Nashville.  The Minnesota Design Team embodies a Component-led model at the state level. Established in 1983, the MDT has served over 100 communities across the state, leveraging the contributions of hundreds of volunteer professionals. The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Center for Resilient Metro-Regions has partnered with Communities by Design in recent years to deliver technical assistance to 9 towns in Vermont and Massachusetts, offering another model. This session will explore comparative approaches to design leadership and volunteer mobilization to impact communities. This session was recorded live on February 19, 2026.

As disasters increase in frequency and intensity across the country, communities now more than ever need the help of architects to address unprecedented challenges. Enter AIA's Disaster Assistance Program, which equips architects and chapters with the knowledge and skills to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. This course teaches you how to properly lead an AIA Disaster Assistance Program in your state and provides you with the tools needed to become a state disaster coordinator. In this comprehensive course, you’ll examine the four phases of the emergency management cycle—mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery—highlighting the roles and contributions of architects in each phase. You’ll learn how to engage proactively in disaster preparedness and response at various levels, emphasizing the importance of these actions for your community’s safety and resilience. You’ll also explore the evolution of the program and recognize the significant contributions architects can make in different disaster scenarios.

Demographic shifts, migration across the U.S., housing affordability, climate change, immigration patterns: These are the big trends potentially upending the way we think about the places where we live. Architects have insights into how we translate these issues into how we need to build our homes in the coming decades. The session will include a review of issues such as adapting homes to be resilient during natural disasters, supporting aging-in-place, making homes more affordable, and navigating the shifting demand patterns from migration. Housing is a leading economic indicator for the broader construction industry. 

In today’s competitive and turbulent marketplace, it can be a challenge for design firms to reach and maintain sustained growth. That’s why developing your firm’s strategic planning and learning new growth strategies is vital to your firm’s success. In this course, you will learn about the strategic planning process and explore growth strategies such as market development, diversification, and strategic alliances. You’ll also understand how to incorporate the components of the business model canvas into your decision-making to develop and implement effective strategic plans that drive firm growth.  

Designed for architecture and design firm leaders, this course equips you with the tools to take a proactive, strategic approach to talent management. You'll learn how to align your firm’s talent planning with broader business goals, identify future skill needs, and close talent gaps—so you can build a framework for hiring, developing, and retaining top talent. The course introduces the key components of successful talent strategy and walks you through a five-step workforce planning process to help you position your firm for long-term success.

This course provides a comprehensive overview of key product categories—facade and roofing systems, interior finishes, daylighting solutions, and security features—emphasizing their role in sustainable and modern architectural design. Through case studies and technical insights, architects and designers will learn to evaluate and specify materials that align with project goals, meet code requirements, and support long-term environmental performance, resilience, and value.

Hiring great talent is just the beginning. This course teaches architecture and design firm leaders how to grow and retain top talent through impactful development strategies. You’ll learn how to create customized employee development plans that align with firm goals and implement coaching, skill-building, and mentorship programs that boost engagement and performance. You’ll also learn how to foster inclusive growth opportunities that support the development of diverse team members. By investing in internal development, you’ll build your leadership capacity and strengthen long-term team performance. 

Emerging technologies will have profound impacts on the urban experience in coming years, with the potential to bring wholesale changes to everything from urban form to mobility and e-commerce. Technology is an integral component of how we plan our cities of the future, creating a host of promising opportunities and daunting challenges. This session will provide a broad overview of the major implications of key emerging technologies unfolding in cities and a framework for understanding urban design and development connections to them.   This session was recorded live on February 1, 2023.

Professional dialogues about urbanism are often held back by their own toxic jargon, but Carlos Moreno’s framing of the “15-Minute City” has delivered a publicly accessible concept that has gained global traction in recent years. Cities all over the world have begun devising strategies with the framework in mind. Urban design plays a key role in moving this idea from concept to reality, with significant implications for climate action and equitable development. Designing more compact cities can cut our carbon emissions by an estimated 25 percent. This session will feature real-world applied settings for the 15-Minute City with lessons learned for other jurisdictions seeking to mobilize action for more sustainable urbanism.    This session was recorded live on April 5, 2023.

Specifications are essential, yet they often lag behind modern design workflows—siloed, text-heavy, and difficult to coordinate. By digitizing resources like AIA MasterSpec within a Common Data Environment, firms can unlock specification data as a foundation for AI-driven workflows. This session shares practical examples of how GenAI improves accuracy, reduces errors, and strengthens collaboration—helping architects transform specifications from a late-stage task into a connected, future-ready practice that accelerates delivery and elevates project outcomes. This session was recorded live on June 17, 2026.