The Architect of the Future
by Phillip Koski, AIA, AIA Minnesota President
Last March I joined members of the indispensable Conference Continuing Education Committee to brainstorm topics that would be relevant and of interest to attendees at our annual gathering. Brilliant architectural details, giving old buildings new life, new codes, biomimicry and biophilia, and so on. What really got me excited, however, was the notion of “the Architect of the Future.”
Admittedly, the phrase is cribbed from a lecture series proposal put forward by past AIA Minnesota president Lee Tollefson, FAIA, over twenty years ago. As provocative as it sounded back then, it seems prescient now especially as we launch our first year of the Next Gen initiative, grapple with understanding the impacts and benefits of AI, and the pressing need to implement resilient design thinking and practice in everything we do.
With each new class of students at the University of Minnesota, I need to explain that when I got my architectural education back in the (ahem) twentieth century, there were basically two kinds of wall sections. Learn them, and you could go workin any firm. Today, every project, even every side of a building, may have its own customized wall assembly, forcing even veteran detailers to start with a blank page. Ever-evolving energy codes, building modeling software, new materials and shifting cultural practices have done away with the copy/paste approach to architectural practice.
We need conferences like the AIA Minnesota Conference on Architecture (for which you can register right now—early reduced rates end October 12 and sessions are already starting to fill up!) because sitting still and relying on old knowledge is a dead end. We are — each of us — all now becoming an architect of the future. That’s why we are all here, to learn from each other, share ideas, and grow our collective expertise. And while we are at it, if we happen to and discover a new widget in the exhibit hall, bump into a former classmate at a keynote, or raise a toast to our teammates for an award-winning project, all the better.
Read the October 2026 edition of Matrix »
Admittedly, the phrase is cribbed from a lecture series proposal put forward by past AIA Minnesota president Lee Tollefson, FAIA, over twenty years ago. As provocative as it sounded back then, it seems prescient now especially as we launch our first year of the Next Gen initiative, grapple with understanding the impacts and benefits of AI, and the pressing need to implement resilient design thinking and practice in everything we do.
With each new class of students at the University of Minnesota, I need to explain that when I got my architectural education back in the (ahem) twentieth century, there were basically two kinds of wall sections. Learn them, and you could go workin any firm. Today, every project, even every side of a building, may have its own customized wall assembly, forcing even veteran detailers to start with a blank page. Ever-evolving energy codes, building modeling software, new materials and shifting cultural practices have done away with the copy/paste approach to architectural practice.
We need conferences like the AIA Minnesota Conference on Architecture (for which you can register right now—early reduced rates end October 12 and sessions are already starting to fill up!) because sitting still and relying on old knowledge is a dead end. We are — each of us — all now becoming an architect of the future. That’s why we are all here, to learn from each other, share ideas, and grow our collective expertise. And while we are at it, if we happen to and discover a new widget in the exhibit hall, bump into a former classmate at a keynote, or raise a toast to our teammates for an award-winning project, all the better.
Read the October 2026 edition of Matrix »