WASHINGTON ARCHITECTURAL FOUNDATION

Our aim is that everyone has access to all the opportunities design offers. Our goals include:
• Making sure our in-school programs are in all wards of the city, every semester
• Providing weekend and summer programs for children at our downtown District Architecture Center that people children and families of all income levels and backgrounds can access.
• Providing scholarships for DC residents who wish to attend architecture school but do not have access to funds to do so.
• Providing programming for adults that empowers them to engage with the design of their communities
• Providing a rich volunteer experience that is structured enough to comply with all necessary regulations but trains and supports the creative talents of our volunteers
• Shining a light on food insecurity in our region through a design-build competition where teams from the design community build structures out of canned goods which are later donated to the Capital Area Food Bank

Our Architecture in the Schools program has operated for almost three decades in the DC and Northern Virginia Schools. This eight-week program sends volunteer teams into the classroom to use architectural projects to supplement existing curricula from K-12. Our strategy has been to develop a strong relationship with administrators, principals and interested in teachers throughout DC and Northern Virginia.
We hold single and multi-weekend programming at the District Architecture Center, teaching skills to middle-schoolers such as drawing, model-making, photography and site design. Students are involved in design and hands-on building projects.

The Design Like A Girl Mentor Programs introduces girls to female role models in architecture, engineering and construction. Quarterly day-long programs teach basic design and engineering concepts which play out in construction of models of theater sets, space habitat or monuments and memorials.

The Barbara Laurie Scholarship Program helps DC students pursue an architecture degree who would otherwise be unable to afford college. The scholarship follows them throughout their college career and the Foundation supports them with any additional tutoring or training they might need and also helps to find the summer internships within Washington firms.

Our programs for adults include monthly programming which supplements the exhibitions in our two galleries. Our capstone program is Architecture Month with more than 40 activities. Each year we have a theme. In 2018 we looked at 50 years after the 1968 Uprising including lectures, exhibitions and films. Architecture Month 2019 was focused on connecting cultures, celebrating the many design and architectural traditions of our embassy partners.

To enrich our volunteer experience we have recently developed job descriptions for our two levels of volunteers, lead and associate, so that its clear who does what and what training may be necessary. We are investing in orientation and training so that our volunteers can easily comply with all applicable laws and have an enriched experience with our students, both children and adults.

The Foundation was created by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1987 to celebrate its centennial. From the start we have had hundreds of volunteer architects involved in our programming each year. The Chapter’s staff provides support for programming through program administration, grants and fundraising. WAF’s Board of Directors is diverse, professional and committed to driving the success of the foundation’s programs.

WAF’s program supporters include the leading funders of arts and humanities in metro DC, including Humanities DC, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Nora Roberts Foundation, the DC Preservation League, the Clark-Winchcole Foundation and numerous other small foundations, as well as a large number of individual donors, large and small who together make it possible for WAF to produce the programs that have a significant impact on our community.

Since moving to the District Architecture Center in the center of the city in 2011 we have been able to expand our programming for both in-school and out-of-school audiences. We are now providing programming for schools around our region at DAC as well. We believe this may be a direction for ultimately sustaining Architecture in the Schools as school buildings themselves become ever more secure.

We are successfully addressing ‘the middle school cliff’ when girls decide that careers in STEM are not for them. Our Design Like a Girl Program, specifically, and all our out-of-school programs generally include girls of this age.

WAF’s half-day summer camp has been so popular that we are now offering it for full days. In addition, kids that have aged out of summer camp have new opportunities as volunteers for the camp and for new programs that show 13-17-year-olds the kinds of careers design offers. In addition, we are piloting a digital design class this year for the same age group. In this way we are reaching students at all levels from K-12.

The work to expand outreach to the public to raise awareness of the importance of architecture in our daily lives prompted us to expand Architecture Week to Architecture Month. Currently 1200 people attend Architecture Month activities. We’d like to double that. We believe the best way to do that is through partnerships with other organizations.

We want to expand the opportunities open to many of our volunteers. Many of our most successful programs were designed by our volunteers. We want to find ways to expand these activities while protecting our most active volunteers from burn-out.

And finally, creating a stable, reliable funding source for our activities is still an ongoing priority. We are focusing our fundraising efforts toward individual donors who can help us support our existing programming.