Contract - April 2014 - 16

pHoto: Meg WaltoN

editorial

Nurturing the Next Generation
In our last issue, many readers took notice of my editorial, "Smells Like
Teen Spirit, or Unpaid Internships," making the case that interns must
be paid or receive college credit for the work they complete. A few
readers emailed me directly, and many clicked to like, repost, or retweet
it via social media. This month, I am continuing to focus on emerging
design professionals with another dimension impacting their financial
wherewithal: student loan debt.
In March, a piece of bipartisan legislation was introduced into
the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 4205, the National Design
Services ACT (NDSA), that would amend the Housing and Community
Development Act of 1974 and give architecture students relief from
student loan debt in return for community service. Similar loan debt
relief is already available to recent graduates of law and medical school,
for example. Introduced by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), the bill had six
cosponsors as of late-March. The bill is strongly supported by the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Institute
of Architecture Students (AIAS).
In a statement, Robert Ivy, FAIA, the CEO of the AIA, says:
"Millions of young people aspire to help their communities build a better
future, but a lack of opportunity and the crushing cost of education
holds them back. As a result, the design and construction industry
faces a severe shortage of talent at exactly the moment America needs
to rebuild for the future."
The NDSA would ease student debt burden by providing
loan assistance to architecture students and recent graduates who
contribute design services to underserved areas. The Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) would be authorized, through
this bill, to create a program allowing architecture students to work with
community design centers in exchange for student loan assistance.
Such centers are often community/university partnerships that provide
assistance to community groups, nonprofit organizations, and city
departments that are representing underserved or underfunded
projects. The goal would be to provide a broad range of architecture
services that may not have otherwise been available to communities,
and architecture graduates will be enticed to stay in the profession
rather than leave for other work.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Financial
Services on March 11, which will consider it before possibly sending it

16

on to the House or Senate as a whole. What are the chances of it being
passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama? Well,
as we all know, Congress has passed far less legislation in recent years.
The independent website govtrack.us, through its own methodology,
notes that this bill has a "two percent chance of being enacted. This
bill has an 11 percent chance of getting past committee first. Only 11
percent of bills made it past committee and only about three percent
were enacted in 2011-2013."
So, the chances may be slim, but the AIA and AIAS must be
applauded for moving forward with the proposal. And I, personally,
am especially proud because students at my alma mater, University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning,
organized phone banks to members of Congress to urge them to
support the bill. Architecture students and graduates are concerned
about the debt load they will be taking on as they pursue career
choices, and we all should be concerned about this because young
people are the future of our industry.
New and notable
In this, our annual issue focused on great hospitality interiors, we
showcase project features as we usually do, but we are also introducing
a new element: two projects that are "new and notable." Yes, frankly all
of the projects that we select to feature are new and notable. But, as
we planned the content for this issue, there were two projects recently
completed in Europe that we simply had to add to the issue, even if not
at full feature length, because of their unexpected appeal. Each is
noteworthy for its beauty, buzz, and brash take on hospitality: the nhow
hotel in Rotterdam (page 82) by Rem Koolhaas's firm OMA and the
restaurant Eclectic in Paris (page 84) by Tom Dixon's Design Research
Studio. Both just opened in January. Call them hot, fresh, now, and
of-the-moment-just like Contract!
Sincerely,
John Czarnecki, assoc. aia, Hon. iida
editor in Chief

contractdesign.com 	

april 2014
http://www.govtrack.us http://www.contractdesign.com
Contract - April 2014

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