Dear Members and Friends of AIA Shanghai | Beijing:
I want to thank everyone who has supported our chapter in 2021, whether by being a member, volunteering on our committees, participating in our awards program, or joining us in events. It’s been a great year and I am proud to have been a part of supporting the international architecture community in China.
AIA Shanghai | Beijing stands out among the AIA Chapters for having been in an environment where we could continue holding events (most of the time) and doing our work without impact from the ongoing pandemic. We have continued growing steadily by reaching out to connect architects of all backgrounds who want the chance to share and learn from work in some of the world’s most dynamic cities. As a result of this focus, we recently passed the milestone of 200 full members – great evidence of the support and recognition we’ve achieved within the architecture community here! As a chapter we’ve undertaken a few new initiatives that represent new possibilities for supporting young and upcoming architects – a fun charitable design competition, lectures by small firms, and a new mentorship program to connect experienced architects to emerging professionals.
Clearly the year ahead presents new challenges for our members and their firms here in China – and we hope to work with everyone to facilitate dialogue and discuss how architects can adapt to prosper in a different environment than the rapid growth of the past decades.
Our new officers were inaugurated Dec 13 at our end-of-year executive committee meeting and I want to welcome and introduce them here:
Kathy Zhu Schleiss, Associate AIA – 2022 President
Anderson Hsieh, AIA – 2022 Vice President
Johnny Chen, AIA – 2022 Treasurer
Ziwen Cai, Associate AIA – 2022 Secretary
All four are excellent professionals with the experience and commitment to do a great job leading our chapter during the year ahead. I congratulate them all and look forward to 2022!
Warm Regards,
Hugh Whitmore, AIA
President, AIA Shanghai | Beijing 2021
