How do we equip members for success?
Create a Killer Digital Library
Anyone who has had the luxury of working in a large firm has enjoyed the resource library managed by the full time librarian who organizes all the binders and codes and samples making product selection and specifications a pleasurable experience. Times have changed, our access is much broader and our firms are more streamlined. Our tools need to adapt. They should encompass Sweets, Sanborn, and Graphic Standards and the product libraries to our knowledge networks and BIM to create whatever should be the digital library of the future. If we could incorporate budget pricing, and specialized standards and codes into the library. This would really help the small practitioners who cannot afford this much content. There are other online libraries like JStor and Avery that we may be able to provide our members access to.
Create a Research Tool
In order to ‘lock a building into its site’ you have to overlay all the information that has impact. Some of it is technical such as zoning, historic districts and building codes. Some of it is functional and aesthetic. What happened there before? How do you plan for the future? What is going on next door? Typically the architect will visit the site and research it. How do we assemble the information so that it is readily available.
Abby has been assembling an online digital resource for information about our cities and how they are shaped.
cultureNOW
After 9/11 many people were focussed in redesigning lower Manhattan. There were planning studies, focus groups and town halls held for a couple of years throughout the city. It was quickly apparent that we needed to be on the same page. Abby assembled all the information available in a single document, the DowntownNOW Map first printed in January 2002 that was widely used. 650,000 were printed in 5 updated editions. It led to cultureNOW.