Q: What is your role at the BSA?

A: My new role at the BSA is Managing Director for Innovation, leading the innovation practice team. This team is focused on leveraging the skills of our members to target local issues—most notably the built environment’s impact on equity and climate. Our work is about experimentation: trying new approaches, learning, and iterating to improve the lives of those in neighborhoods and beyond.

With all the RFI submissions in, the next step is evaluating the projects to determine which ones the BSA will advance.

The firm is making the substantial donation to support the BSA's innovation work.

We spoke with some of the members of the BSA’s innovation practice team for a deep dive into how the RFI process looked.

On December 1, the BSA/AIA and BSA Foundation Annual Meeting took place virtually, with a keynote conversation between Emily Grandstaff-Rice FAIA, the 99th president of the AIA, and Nigel Jacob, BSA Managing Director of Innovation.

Intellectual property rights, geographic scope for projects, resources the BSA will provide, and more were among the topics raised by participants in an engaging conversation at the BSA Request for Innovations (RFI) workshop on November 15.

The BSA has embarked on a new vision to advance innovation in the built environment while continuing to support the profession through education, networking, and advocacy. To launch this effort, the BSA is putting out a call for ideas–a Request for Innovations–with the goal of making changes to the art and practice of architecture that have strong potential to address equity and climate.