Year-end Message from 2022 AIA Japan president

Dear Members, Colleagues, Friends, and Sponsors

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the members, friends and sponsors of AIA Japan. It was an honor and a privilege to serve AIA Japan as a president in 2022.

For AIA Japan this year was a sort of transition year as we shifted from all online events to having small in-person events. In the first half of the year after I started my term, most of the activities were conducted online. Our officers attended the Grassroots Conference online and the President Club meeting was also held online in February. Our CES lectures also rolled out the 2022 series in online format.  We still provide most of the CES lectures in this format.  This format freed us from constraints of time and location and we can provide lectures for wider audiences including Asian countries, the U.S., and the Middle East.  I believe that it is an important mission of AIA Japan to disseminate such attractive lectures from Japan.  

We started to introduce in-person activities after May 2022. We introduced a CES lecture in hybrid format as a joint lecture with I-AUD, Meiji University that came with a reception after the lecture in a venue near-by.  It provided a precious opportunity for us to meet each other in person after a long pause.  The second President Club meeting was held face-to-face this time. Our board members attended A'22 in Chicago and AIAI conference 2022 in London that were held  face-to-face format, as well as allied organization’s events such as JIA 2022 Okinawa Architect Convention.  In addition, we conducted several small scale in person events this year.  Especially, those gallery visits and tours offered opportunities to provide fruitful knowledge in intimate and direct ways. I found our in-person events to be especially rewarding and we would really like to find a way to provide activities that fits to the scale of our organization.

We adopted a renewed 3-Year Strategic Plan 2022-2024 this year and took steps forward to ensure our memberships get more benefits and enjoy new activities. Throughout the various programs including CES lectures, events and tours in 2022, AIA Japan provided 18LU (16HSW) total and fulfilled AIA Requirement. In addition, AIA Japan EP/AXP committee provided a webinar with NCARB for emerging professionals to improve career development. AIA Japan Design Award committee conducted the award program and celebrated the winners at our year-end party in December. Based upon the MOU established between  AIA Japan and ULI Japan last year, our members continued to participate in their Urban Plan workshop. It was a great honor to share these activities of AIA Japan together with the members and invited guests in person at the year-end party.

Many dedicated volunteers including members, lecturers, presenters, and award jurors, have supported us throughout the year. I really thank all the volunteers of the 2022 and would like to particularly thank our Vice-president Tetsuya Yaguchi, Secretary and Program & Event Director Yumiko Yamada, Treasurer Leo Nishimura, Design Award Director Segene Park, PR Director Daishi Yoshimoto, Sponsorship Director George Kunihiro, Architecture Tour Director Akira Nakamura, EP/AXP Director Balazs Bognar, CES Committee Chair Richard Moriwaki, Chapter Historian James Lambiasi, AIA International Vice-President Scott Gold, and lastly CES Committee member, James Scott Brew for their tremendous efforts to make various activities of  AIA Japan possible.

I am looking forward to 2023 and feel certain that our new board of AIA Japan will bring us great opportunities.

Sincerely,

Tomoaki Tanaka, AIA

2022 President of AIA Japan