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AIA Inaugurates 2007 President

Over the past year, RK Stewart served as AIA first vice president.

Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 12/13/2006 12:00:00 AM

On December 8, RK Stewart became the 83rd president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Principal at the San Francisco office of architecture, design and strategic planning firm Gensler, Stewart plans to focus on reducing building energy consumption. He was elected 2007 president last year at the AIA 2005 annual convention and succeeds Katherine Lee Schwennsen.

Heading up some 80,000 members, Stewart intends to further the AIA’s ongoing diversity, emerging design professionals and sustainability programs, with the hopes to move initiatives from “a strategic to tactical plane." On the sustainability front, he will focus on reducing current consumption level of fossil fuels used to construct and operate buildings by 50 percent by the year 2010. In order to meet this goal, he will collaborate with the U.S. Council of Mayors and industry leaders.

"The architecture industry can play an even greater role in creating healthy and vibrant communities," Stewart says, "it is incumbent upon the architectural profession to utilize innovative design principles that will dramatically improve environmental performance of the built environment."