 The Institute of Architecture Inc. SLIA recently installed a new executive. The organization is geared towards protecting professional architectural practice, facilitating public education on architecture, and forge linkages to enable progress in the architecture industry. President Jamal Francis made an appearance on the NTN Morning Brew Friday. Myself and my vice president Howard Wells were on the executive from last year, so we carried over president and vice president. And our secretary is a new election, a new post this year, a new arrival to the executive, that's Dexter Myers. He's a fairly young architect, but pretty sharp, so he's joined us on the executive. We also have Mr. Keem Shalry as our treasurer, and then we have our fellow members Jeremiah Fulcher, who is the past president. He was the president before me, and Danny Delgado, he's a new member to the executive as well. The president underscored the importance of architecture to society, and its usefulness in climate adaptation and resilience. It is part art, part science, but architecture is all about creating a space to make humans feel secure and comfortable, that has been the history of architecture. When someone wants a house or when they want it, they want it for a specific purpose, so it's always functional. Now, there are three things that architecture must meet. It must be durable, whatever you design and construct must be durable, so it must stand up to the surroundings. It must be functional, so it must meet, it must be useful to the persons using that space or that building, because architecture is not just buildings, you have external spaces, et cetera. And then there's the beauty aspect of it, that one of the major issues with resilience in Saint Lucia has to do with the design and construction of homes and businesses. When a hurricane passes through an island, you find that the majority of the destruction is the small homes, apart from bridges and roads, you know, it's the small homes, and that is where the majority of funds has to be spent now to rebuild. Look at what happened in Dominica, you know, and that is because most of the time these homes are not designed by professionals. Francis said while homes should be built to accommodate the preferences of owners, there is a need to preserve the architectural language of the Caribbean. But I think that we definitely need to identify certain zones that are protected. You know, Souffretown is one that stands out to me, even Grosile. You know, there are certain areas that you have to sort of protect, and parts of castries as well. If you look at places like New Orleans, New Orleans is a very modern city, but they have their traditional district where the facades are protected. The interiors of the buildings can be as modern as you want, but you have to protect the facades, and that helps to maintain some of the architectural language from that area. So we can do that sort of thing, and I think it's important that we do that, and we do need a national plan. The Institute of Architects in Lucia, Inc. will join Global Counterpats in commemorating World Architecture Day on the 4th of October 2021.