An interview with Rich Cole, AIA

CHRIS WELTY, AIA HAS SPENT A CONSIDERABLE amount of his career in education, teetering between his own multimedia design company Weltyworld, and teaching. A Georgia Tech graduate, he found his calling in combining his talents as an architect and tech aficionado at then Southern Polytechnic State University, now Kennesaw State University, in the College of Architecture and Construction Management. Working directly with students in this way has transformed his idea about the direction of the profession and creates an outlet for new and exciting approaches to design and problem solving through architecture. In this, Chris fuses creative with the practical preparing students for their careers and life as a professional.

Richard “Rich” Cole, AIA, the former fearless leader of the college at Kennesaw (and a Georgia Tech grad himself) brings with him decades of experience in practice and higher education. His retirement, while a tremendously sad loss to the school, is also a chance to reflect on the growth of the program, the profession, and ways to look forward.

Chris sat down with Rich and talked shop, or should we say studio...

CHRIS: It has been a long journey, and you are coming up to the end of your career.

RICH: I know, I know. Who would have thought, you and I, we’ve known each other for quite some time. I remember when you were a youngster, I could trick you into doing some of my work. Then you got wise.

CHRIS: I don’t fall for that anymore! What I’d love for you to do is share a little about how you got here; your background...

RICH: I attended Georgia Tech, and I graduated in 1974, and then I went on to get a masters degree at Georgia Tech. I knew nothing about how to screw buildings together, but I could draw pretty good pictures of buildings… of a cool magazine, hip kind of things… So I kind of moved around from firm to firm as a hired gun drawing pictures of buildings. So anyway, as it worked out, I was in a firm in Buckhead, and the principles had gotten older and wanted to retire. One of the ways you can move into ownership is to buy one out, and that’s what I did. I was a principal for about 15 years as an associate, and then I came out to what was then Southern Tech. That’s what everyone called it. I actually came in 1982 as an adjunct.

CHRIS: So you’ve seen a lot of changes over the years.

RICH: Oh, yes. I’ve seen changes in the profession — changes in academia. I’ve certainly seen changes with Southern Polytechnic State University.

CHRIS: As we kind of evolved from SPSU to KSU (Kennesaw State University). What has been some of the changes in the way we teach architecture to students.

Rich receives “Professor Emeritus of Architecture” for his distinguished and dedicated KSU career.

RICH: I think overall, it’s been a good thing. I was skeptical about the consolidation, but I was proved wrong. We are better resourced. Students are benefited, architecture students and others, because we are in a larger community with other disciplines, and I think that’s a good thing. We need to take advantage of that. If we take a trajectory of involving our architecture and construction management students— if that trajectory leads to more understanding, sensitivity, relationship to other disciplines that are now available to us more easily. I think that’s a good thing.

When you and I did a collaboration with game design, and we needed a musical score, I don’t know if you remember, we had to cut a deal with a school in Brooklyn because we didn’t have that. But now we the college of the arts, we have the resource to do that. It’s easier now, and we have to take advantage of it.

CHRIS: So in that thought of collaboration. How does the school reach out to the profession more?

RICH: Well, the profession wants certain things from us. What they would like in a perfect world would be that our graduates would hit the ground running and know how to screw a building together. That would probably mean we’d work as more of a trade school than an academy where we are providing a way of critically thinking about problems. Not just architecture problems but societal problems. I think that’s the kind of architect the profession wants eventually — someone who can take pride and see the world comprehensively. We can do what we do pretty well— teaching them how to think. We need a better understanding between the academy and the profession. We each have our strengths, and we need to respect our strengths.

CHRIS: I have heard from quite a few practitioners that the ability to think and solve a problem is as important as anything we do.

When we start to talk about architecture students, what makes a great architecture student?

RICH: I think you are a better student if you have a sensitivity. Do I really hear other people, am I really here? Am I hearing you and feeling you so I can respond as a professional to what you need? Basically, doing more non-architecture things will make you a better architect.

CHRIS: We’ve often even thought about some of the tools we use impeding the decision-making process? How do you value sketching in this digital world?

RICH: I think it’s so important. I have to kind of be careful because its so old school I guess, but I’ve often thought that you kind of have to see something and demonstrate that you can actually kind of see it because you can draw it. I think you think in terms of design-think with more clarity.

I would often say about buildings to my young students, particularly when they were so involved in learning digital ways of portraying buildings, I would say just what does the building look like to you? If I’m just crossing the street, what does it look like? Just draw me a picture; what does it look like? And, they struggle with that because of time constraints and its not what schools in general focus on like when you and I were in school.

So anyway I would say, just draw a threedimensional sketch of what it looks like from here with all the grid lines, ground lines, station point, all that kind of stuff and they would think I was magical or it was voodoo or something but this is teachable! Although I do believe if you can draw upside down on a cocktail napkin and push it to a client, you’re magical. They want to pay you!

CHRIS: In your career, who was the most influential architect you studied?

RICH: So, I didn’t study this person, but I’m proud to say it was someone from Georgia Tech, Dale Durfee. When I entered Georgia Tech as a young freshman in 1970, he was a very young man. He was brand new to Georgia Tech, hadn’t been there long, and he was so tough, so passionate and just funny as hell— one of the funniest people I’ve ever been around— I learned a lot about myself just surviving him. He was brilliant but he was just so tough.

CHRIS: Demanding…

RICH: Very demanding, and I miss him a lot. There are a lot of famous architects out there I know, but to me, Dale was famous.

CHRIS: That’s great. So as you look back on your teaching career, have you ever thought about all the students that you’ve impacted? Like Dale?

RICH: I the last few years I have because there’s this phenomenon when a student will come to me and say you taught my father or mother. I’m like really? You wish there would be something profound they’d say, you know how you impacted them, but usually a funny story they’d remember.

I remember one person who said that one of her parents said that they had recorded my lectures and would listen to them in the car while they were commuting to school. So I said wow that’s kind of cool, sounds neat and respectful, and they said oh no it’s nothing like that they just thought you were hilarious! • CHRIS WELTY, AIA

[This is a partial transcript] View the entire video interview at vimeo.com/aiageorgia