By Jill Lerner, FAIA, KPF

Archtober is upon us! Now in its third year, the city-wide month-long festival of architecture and design is a non-stop effort to promote design awareness throughout the five boroughs. The increasing participation of collaborating organizations (now more than 50) is a testament to its growing impact. Our "Archtober Lounge" at the Center for Architecture will serve as home base to these events, which feature more than 150 lectures, conferences, programs, tours, and exhibitions.
This month also marks the opening of our new exhibition at the Center for Architecture, "Practical Utopias: Global Urbanism in Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo." The exhibition will shed light on the role that many international architecture and engineering firms are playing in the massive construction boom and mega-buildings dotting East Asia. Global practice has been steadily increasing for New York-based firms both large and small, and is a significant percentage of their work today; this exhibition is a great opportunity for New Yorkers to see the impressive work being done abroad and to better understand those urban issues and unique solutions that may influence the architects and planners of the future. Recent presentations abroad by Rick Bell, FAIA in Russia, and my presentation in Buenos Aires have furthered AIANY's continued efforts for the cultural exchange of ideas.
Closer to home, AIANY has continued to offer testimony at the City Planning Commission, Landmarks Preservation Commission and the New York City Council on a range of key issues facing our city, and we will redouble efforts to bring these issues to the forefront of the discourse among the candidates for elected office. Individual meetings are scheduled with those elected officials who will make the most important decisions affecting the built environment in the coming years. These open dialogues will focus on substantive issues, as enumerated in our "Platform for the Future of the City," published earlier this year.
The past month has featured numerous articles evaluating and commenting on the city's condition following 12 years of the Bloomberg administration. Despite varied statistics and perspectives on a range of issues, it is absolutely clear that the city has benefited greatly through the improvements in parks, open space, transportation, residential development, and is poised to face the future with a greater awareness of climate change and resilience options, and the AIANY has been a partner in offering expertise and education in all of these areas. As we head into this Archtober month, our first stop for the "Building of the Day" series is at city hall. A fitting kick-off, highlighting the ongoing utilization of a treasured city landmark, for our rapidly changing city.
For more information on our upcoming activities please visit our website, www.aiany.org. The Archtober calendar can be found online at www.archtober.org.
And we hope to see you at the Heritage Ball on October 24th!
Jill Lerner, FAIA, is the 2013 president of the AIANY, New York, N.Y. Tags: