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Preparing Our Firms and Communities
The first West Virtual Connect session of 2026 brought together architects and industry leaders from across Colorado’s western region to focus on a topic that is becoming increasingly central to practice: disaster preparedness. With wildfire risk intensifying, flood events recurring, and climate-driven disruptions reshaping both policy and practice, the conversation centered on how architects and firms can prepare not just buildings, but themselves, their systems, and their communities, for moments of crisis.
Moderated by Molly Wheelock, Assoc. AIA, Studio MW, and Andi Korber, AIA, Land+Shelter, the session featured perspectives from AIA Colorado, AIA National, and Scott Rodwin, AIA, Rodwin Architects, each offering a distinct lens on preparedness “before, during, and after” disaster events.
Building Capacity Before Crisis
Nick Remus, AIA, Advocacy Engagement Director, AIA Colorado, opened with reflections from the “After the Flames” conference, where the architecture profession was notably underrepresented but increasingly essential. The conference reinforced a key theme: architects must be engaged in disaster ecosystems before events occur, not only after.
He also outlined ongoing state-level policy and preparedness efforts, including wildfire resiliency code implementation, legislative debates around delaying enforcement, and proposals for disaster mitigation funding mechanisms. While progress is underway, Nick emphasized that capacity gaps remain, particularly at the local government level, and that coordination between jurisdictions, agencies, and practitioners is still uneven.
Paola Capo, AIA National, expanded the conversation into firm preparedness, focusing on business continuity planning as an underutilized but critical tool for architecture firms. She emphasized that continuity planning is not just about emergency response, it is about protecting operations, maintaining client trust, and preserving firm stability during disruption.
She also highlighted the AIA’s Safety Assessment Program (SAP), which trains architects to assess building safety after disasters in coordination with emergency management agencies. These trained professionals play a key role in re-entry decisions, helping communities safely return to buildings while accelerating recovery timelines.
A central takeaway from this segment was that preparedness is not only technical, it’s relational. Firms that are embedded in local emergency management networks before disaster strikes are significantly better positioned to respond effectively.
Capacity, Ethics, and the Reality of Response
Scott Rodwin, AIA, provided a grounded account of what disaster response looks like from a practicing firm’s perspective, drawing on his experience following the Marshall Fire. His firm received an overwhelming surge of inquiries, far exceeding their normal project capacity, and was forced to make deliberate decisions about how many clients they could realistically take on without compromising quality or ethics.
He described this as the “lifeboat problem”: the challenge of balancing urgency, compassion, and professional capacity in a moment when demand spikes dramatically and expectations are often unclear or unrealistic.
Rodwin emphasized that post-disaster clients are fundamentally different from typical clients. They are often in emotional crisis, displaced, and overwhelmed. In this context, architects become not just designers, but listeners, counselors, and stabilizers, helping people move from shock toward a sense of direction and possibility.
He also stressed the importance of setting realistic expectations early, particularly around cost, timelines, and construction capacity. One of the most common sources of conflict post-disaster, he noted, is misinformation about rebuild costs and timelines that cannot be met given real-world constraints in labor and materials.
Systems, Policy, and the Architecture of Recovery
The session highlighted how recovery is shaped as much by systems as by individual effort. Scott shared insights from Boulder County’s Article 19 disaster permitting framework, which enabled expedited review processes and temporarily reallocated permitting staff to prioritize rebuilding efforts after the Marshall Fire.
Key innovations included:
These systemic adjustments demonstrated that recovery speed is often determined not by the absence of rules, but by the ability to adapt them temporarily in response to crisis.
Insurance challenges were another major theme. Scott described widespread underinsurance among homeowners and the critical role architects played in developing “as-was” documentation, detailed cost and scope analyses aligned with insurance frameworks. In many cases, these documents became essential tools in negotiations, significantly affecting settlement outcomes and recovery capacity for homeowners.
Key Themes
Across all presentations and discussion, several themes emerged:
Closing Reflection
The session underscored a growing reality for the profession: disaster preparedness is no longer a specialized topic, it is becoming a core competency of architectural practice in the western United States.
As climate-driven events become more frequent and more complex, the ability of firms and communities to prepare, respond, and recover will depend less on any single solution and more on the strength of their systems, relationships, and readiness to operate under pressure.
The conversation closed with a shared recognition that preparedness begins long before disaster strikes, and that architects have a critical role to play in shaping not just resilient buildings, but resilient communities.
Additional Resources
Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code
Architects’ Guide to Business Continuity
Post-disaster assessment training:
Marshall Fire Recovery Dashboard for Destroyed Residential Properties
Rebuilding Better, a toolkit for those households faced with rebuilding after the 2021 Marshall Fire.
West Virtual Connect
Members west of the Front Range convene quarterly in a virtual setting to explore the challenges and opportunities shaping practice in the region.
In 2026, the West Section Advisors are hosting a series of open roundtables, welcoming all members in the West to join and contribute.
RSVP for events at AIA Colorado’s event page.