YAF is AIA Pittsburgh's component Young Architects Forum. However, AIA membership is not required to be a part of our forum. Our primary mission is to serve as an information resource to address the issues of architectural internship and continuing education as well as be to a voice for the students, interns, and young architects in our local chapter. We also strive to help educate employers about the Intern Development Program (IDP) and the registration exam process (A.R.E.). Lastly we aim to help represent this early career development stage within our local AIA chapter and provide a peer network for interns and young architects.

In addition to being a peer network, we are attempting to be a valued resource for continuing education for young architects in this area. This is primarily for their overall career development, but also to assist young architects in fulfilling their CES requirements while also assisting the interns in satisfying their IDP requirements. Although a yearly routine of site visits and seminars attract the most attendees, we realize that we need to grow and expand our impact and assistance to the careers of the young professionals in our area through whatever means possible. We are always looking for new and fresh ideas and the energy and resources to implement them.

Simply stated, we are a group of young professionals interested in augmenting our careers by continuing education in the architectural field through activities such as conducting seminars, visiting construction sites, attending professional group events and touring building product manufacturing facilities.

The planning of these activities is generally organized and implemented by a core of directors, which ranges between 5 to 7 persons with 2 additional people sharing the chair position. There are over 160 young professionals that we currently contact through an email database, in addition to students at local schools of architecture.

For more information, please contact either Art Sheffield, Assoc. AIA at Massaro Corporation (412) 963.2800 or Kristin Goral at WTW Architects (412) 321.0550

To be included in our email database and to receive our newsletters, email us at piyaf@yahoo.com.