Chicago Studio | Andres Jimenez | Spring 2015

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CannonDesign Andres Jimenez

Ryan Myers

Michael Mekonen

Kirsten Hull

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Joanna Brindise

Alex Cheng

Connor Walker

Janice Jones

GREC Architects Landon Williams

Barbara Kane

Chanel Carter-Harris

Mo Wang

von Weise Associates Palmer Ferguson

Zach Wolk

CO N T E N TS 6 | CHICAGO EXPERIENCE

140 | PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

PROJECT TIMELINE

32 | DESIGN STUDIO

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TRANSIT CENTER STUDY

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ATYPICAL ANALYSIS

SITE ANALYSIS

PRELIMINARY CONJECTURE

PROGRAMMATIC ANALYSIS

MICRO-UNITS

PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE

WORKSHOP WITH MONTERREY TECH

PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE

UNITS 4

PRACTITIONER LECTURES

PRACTITIONER INTERVIEWS

HYPOTHETICAL FIRM

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196 | PUBLIC LECTURES

202 | URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENTS

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MOVING TO CHICAGO

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FOURTEEN IN TWO APARTMENTS

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COMMUTING EVERYDAY

COMMUTING EVERYDA

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AY

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WORKING AT CANNONDESIGN

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WATCHING THE LANDSCAPE CHANGE

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WATCHING THE CITYSCAPE CHANGE

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BIG CITY VS. SMALL TOWN CHICAGO VS. BLACKSBURG

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CITY ARCHITECTURE TOUR

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EXPLORING MUSEUMS

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EXPLORING EXHIBITS AND SHOWS

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AND OF COURSE, FOOD

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C H I C AG O, M I LWAU K E E , M I N N E A P O L I S

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ST U D I O TRANSIT CENTER STUDY

ATYPICAL ANALYSIS

SITE ANALYSIS

PRELIMINARY CONJECTURE

PROGRAMMATIC ANALYSIS

MICRO-UNITS

PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE

WORKSHOP WITH MONTERREY TECH

PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE

UNITS

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PROMPT 1

1/261/30

T Y P I C A L A N A LY S I S TRANSIT CENTERS The study of multi-modal hubs began with analyzing examples around the world. As a studio, we presented our findings on the programmatic, contextual, and situational responses of each station.

South Railway Station | Beijing, China Kings Cross Station | London, England St. Pancras International | London, England Chatelet les Halles | Paris, France Hauptbahnhof | Berlin, Germany M端nchner Freiheit | Munich, Germany KPF International Commerce Center | Hong Kong Centraal Station | Amsterdam, Netherlands Centraal Station | Rotterdam, Netherlands Gare do Oriente | Lisbon, Portugal Atocha Station | Madrid, Spain SBB Basel | Basel, Switzerland Lucerne Railway Station | Lucerne, Switzerland

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Tempe Transportation Center | Tempe, Arizona Union Station | Los Angeles, California Union Station | Denver, Colorado The Loop + Pedway | Chicago, Illinois South Station | Boston, Massachusetts Rosa Parks Transit Center | Detroit, Michigan Fulton Center | New York, New York New York Port Authority | New York, New York Penn Station | New York, New York Charlotte Transit Area | Charlotte, North Carolina Rosslyn Metro Station | Washington, DC Union Station | Washington, DC Curitiba Rapid Bus System | Curitiba, Brazil

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PROMPT 2

AT Y P I C A L A N A LY S I S

2/012/03

SOUND

We were tasked with recording the site and adjacent context using only ONE of the five senses: sight (opthalmoception) hearing (audioception) taste (gustaception) smell (olfacoception) touch (tactiocpetion) How do the senses, or the limitation of senses, remap the perception of space and place?

How much can a single sense record? atypical not representative of a type, group, or class: unusual, untypical, uncommon, unconventional, unorthodox, irregular, abnormal, anomalous, aberrant, deviant, unrepresentative; strange, odd, peculiar, bizarre, weird, queer, freakish, eccentric; exceptional, singular, unique, rare, out of the ordinary, extraordinarytrain

platform

ticketing

escalator pass pass

bus station bus station

road

road

parking lot road

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pastry shop

“Most often our perception of the city is not sustained, but rather partial, fragmentary, mixed with other concerns. Nearly every sense is in operation, and the image is the composite of them all.�

-Kevin Lynch Four Main Concepts: [1] An urban system has to held legible, through definite sensory cues [2] its image has to be perceived by the observer [3] arbitrarily selected by the community and finally manipulated by city planners [4] legibility and image-ability would then lead to the identification of a structure Therefore producing a precise identity, which are both parameters through witch it is possible to analyze an urban systems and its own elements.

The image of the city arises from the underlying scaling of city artifacts or actions. This scaling refers to the fact that, in an image-able city (a city that can easily be imaged in human minds), small city artifacts are far more common than large ones; or alternatively low dense locations are far more common than high dense locations. The sizes of the city artifacts in a rank-size plot exhibit a heavy tailed distribution consisting of the head, which is composed of a minority of unique artifacts (vital and very important), and the tail, which is composed of redundant other artifacts (trivial and less important). Eventually, those extremely unique and vial artifacts in the top head, i.e., what Lynch called city elements, make up the image of the city. We argue that the ever-increasing amount of geographic information on cities, in particular obtained from social media such as Flickr and Twitter, can turn research on the image of the city, or cognitive mapping in general, into a quantitative manner. The scaling property might be formulated as a law of geography.

-B. Jiang, Nonlinear Sciences - Cornell University

This study was done by taking recordings at various points along a path through the neighborhood around the transit center.

These recordings were then audibly collaged into a four minute audio file.

This audio file was then used as a basis to make a flash video to visually depict the sounds one experiences in and around the Jefferson Park Transit Center. Moving circles around the center circle -the user- quantify the direction, intensity, and movement of the sounds.

[Paths] streets, sidewalks, trails, and other channels in which people travel [Landmarks] readily identifiable objecs which serve as external reference points [Edges] perceived boundaries such as walls, buildings, and shorelines [Nodes] focal points, intersections of loci [Districts] relatively large sections of the city distinguished by some identity or character

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PROMPT 3

2/032/06

AT Y P I C A L A N A LY S I S SOUND

Sound is more than just its amplitude or direction. Some noises are constant and either tuned out or subdued perceptionally, while others are more direct and piercing.

Through further analysis, we also found that sound is not limited to an even static. There are heavier pebbles of sound mixing with finer grains. These sounds interact with the surfaces of the space and give humans a subconscious echolocation type understanding of place.

Sound as even particulates

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Sound as mixed particulates

-train platform

quiet site-

-ticket platform

site with train-

-bus platform

main road-

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S I T E A N A LY S I S PROJECT PARTNER: KIRSTEN HULL

GOAL This analysis was of the connection of the site to the adjacent transit center and the immediate surroundings. It was looked at through the movement of people on foot, in cars, and in public transportation and understanding the different levels of connection for each type of movement and how one may hinder the others. In addition to the movement, we looked at the stationary components of the area and how those influence the movement.

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2/062/10

train

platform

ticketing

escalator pass pass

bus station bus station

road

road

parking lot road

pastry shop

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STATIC

DYNAMIC

O’Hare

Downtown

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PRELIMINARY CONJECTURE

2/102/13

PROJECT PARTNER: RYAN MYERS GOAL The site is looked at directly in relation to the immediate surroundings and the programmatic requirements. The movement of people, the sun, and traffic carve the form extruded directly from the irregular shape site. The resulting negative space is also sculpted as the usable space it replaced is reallocated.

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site limits are extruded in entirety

openings are carved based on sunlight path

prominent corners are chamfered

masses are staggered in height for light

CRITIQUE Creating a form through a subtractive process disconnected the building from the programmatic requirements and the quality of space it would host.

CONCLUSION In continuing the project, we will look at the site more analytically and use what we find about the people of the existing neighborhood to inform a building.

floors are placed

programs are divided with retail below

floors across masses are threaded

circulation within and through building

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PROGRAMMATIC A N A LY S I S

2/132/27

SOCIAL

RESIDENTIAL

BUSINESS

FOOD

RETAIL

ENTERTAINMENT

INFRASTRUCTURE

EDUCATION

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RECREATION

GOAL For this week we revisited the existing site and context of the city. The previous iteration had been too formal and did not properly address many of the underlying qualities of the neighborhood. We looked at various pieces of information of the area and studied it diagrammatically.

Hispanic Foreign-born citizen White

Second Language

US Born

White+

Foreign-born resident

Median Income $76,593

No Vehicle

Family Household

Individuals

2 Vehicles

1 Vehicle

Single Parent Below Poverty Level

Rented Housing Median Rent 990

Built Before 1939 Owned Housing Median Value 271,800 Built After 2010

Same House over past year

Vacant

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Residential Market Prepared Foods Coffee Bar Cooking Classrooms Bar Restaurant Gym Restrooms Multi-Use Rooms Movie Theater Gallery

Residential Market Prepared Foods Coffee Bar Cooking Classrooms Bar Restaurant Gym Restrooms Multi-Use Rooms Movie Theater Gallery

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Residential Market Prepared Foods Coffee Bar Cooking Classrooms Bar Restaurant Gym Restrooms Multi-Use Rooms Movie Theater Gallery

Restrooms Multi-Use Rooms Movie Theater Gallery

COMPARATIVE SCALES

Residential Market Prepared Foods Coffee Bar Cooking Classrooms Bar Restaurant Gym Restrooms Multi-Use Rooms Movie Theater Gallery

SITE

RESIDENTIAL UNIT

MCCOMAS GYM

HPI FITNESS

EATALY

SIP [restaurant/bar]

WHOLE FOODS

BARRELHOUSE FLAT [bar]

JEWEL OSCO

JOHNNY CASSEROLE [restaurant]

THE LYRIC THEATER

NRV MOVIE THEATER

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Grade School [1] College [1] Transportation [2] Adults Public Services [8] Elderly Restaurant [16] K-12 Youths Bar [3] Families RESIDENTS

Goods [12] College Students

VISITORS

Services [43] Young Professionals Office [5] Commuters Apartment [40] Tourists House [1045] Immigrants Live Theatre [2] Park [5] Art[1]

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INFRASTR

RETA

FOO

RECREA

SOC

BUSIN

RESIDE

ENTERTA

EDUCA

Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

RUCTURE

PRIVATE

TAIL

OD

Prepared Foods [...]

CONNECT

Coffee Bar [1]

ATION

Restaurant [1]

CIAL

Bar [1]

NESS

ENTIAL

AINMENT

ATION

Market [1]

Cooking Classroom [2] ADD

Gym [1] PUBLIC

Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

RM

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Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

PRIVATE

Gallery [1]

Market [1] Prepared Foods [...]

Multi-Use Room [...]

Coffee Bar [1] Restaurant [1] Movie Theatre [1]

Bar [1] Cooking Classroom [2]

Gym [1]

Gym [1] PUBLIC

Movie Theatre [1] Cooking Classroom [2]

Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

] Residential Unit [300] Gallery [1]

Communal Area [...]

Multi-Use Room [...]

Market [1]

Movie Theatre [1]

Prepared Foods [...]

2] Gym [1]

Coffee Bar [1]

Cooking Classroom [2]

Restaurant [1] Bar [1]

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Gym

Movie Theatre

Multi-Use R

Communal Area

Gallery

Communal Area Bar

Restaurant

Movie Theatr

Residential Unit [300] Multi-Use Room

Coffee Bar Prepared Foods

Cooking Classrooms Market

Co

Residential Unit [300] Gallery [1]

Communal Area [...]

Multi-Use Room [...]

Market [1]

Movie Theatre [1]

Prepared Foods [...]

Gym [1]

Coffee Bar [1]

Cooking Classroom [2]

Restaurant [1] Bar [1]

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Grade School [1] College [1] Transportation [2] Adults Public Services [8] Elderly Restaurant [16] K-12 Youths Bar [3] Families RESIDENTS

Goods [12] College Students

VISITORS

Services [43] Young Professionals Office [5] Commuters Apartment [40] Tourists House [1045] Immigrants Live Theatre [2] Park [5] Art[1]

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INFRASTRUCTURE RETAIL FOOD

CONNECT

RECREATION SOCIAL BUSINESS RESIDENTIAL ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION

ADD

Residential Unit [300] Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

PRIVATE

Gallery [1]

Market [1] Prepared Foods [...]

Communal Area [...]

Multi-Use Room [...]

Market [1]

Coffee Bar [1] Restaurant [1] Bar [1]

Movie Theatre [1]

Prepared Foods [...]

Cooking Classroom [2] Gym [1] PUBLIC

Gym [1]

Coffee Bar [1]

Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

Cooking Classroom [2]

Restaurant [1] Bar [1]

RM

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58

5

min

10 min

SITE [1] RESIDENTIAL [1085] BUSINESS/SHOPPING/TRADE [79] SOCIAL/INSTITUTIONAL/INFRASTRUCTURE [11] INDUSTRIAL/WHOLESALE/TRADE [4] ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT/RECREATION [8] TRANSPORTATION [2] VACANT [25]

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MICRO-UNITS

GOAL The housing units as part of the program are to be 250-300 square feet and most likely to accommodate a single person.

APPROACH In thinking about condensing space and various programs of a house which we normally assume certain arrangement and sizes, the space becomes more about volume than square footage. A major part of the community created by grouping such small units relies on the shared space between them. We began to think of the arrangement which minimizes circulation space and maximizes certain levels of connection and privacy.

To visualize this space, Ryan and I mapped it on the floor.

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250 ft2

25 ft 14 ft

10 ft

294 ft2

21 ft

The honeycomb shape allows for efficient stacking of multiple units and maximization of space inside.

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5 ft 10 ft

260 ft2

21 ft

Multiple combinations of cells allow for different apartments, even though all are about the same size.

20 ft

20 ft

320 ft2

260 ft2

10 ft

10 ft

6 ft

10 ft

6 ft

Multpile stories could also give an apartment more volume and separation of spaces.

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Single Unit

4 Units Stacked Horizontally into a Cluster

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4 Clusters Stacked Veritcally

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The bathroom is only as big as the room to house the toilet when it is closed. The door opens in a two part process to expand the bathroom to share room with a shared kitchen sink, shower, and closet.

Door is swung out

Secondary panel slides out to close space between door and cabinets

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Grade School [1] College [1] Transportation [2] Adults Public Services [8] Elderly Restaurant [16] K-12 Youths Bar [3] Families RESIDENTS

Goods [12] College Students

VISITORS

Services [43] Young Professionals Office [5] Commuters Apartment [40] Tourists House [1045] Immigrants Live Theatre [2] Park [5] Art[1]

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INFRASTRUCTURE RETAIL FOOD

CONNECT

RECREATION SOCIAL BUSINESS RESIDENTIAL ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION

ADD

Residential Unit [300] Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

PRIVATE

Gallery [1]

Market [1] Prepared Foods [...]

Communal Area [...]

Multi-Use Room [...]

Market [1]

Coffee Bar [1] Restaurant [1] Bar [1]

Prepared Foods [...]

Movie Theatre [1]

Cooking Classroom [2] Gym [1] PUBLIC

Coffee Bar [1]

Gym [1]

Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

Cooking Classroom [2]

Restaurant [1] Bar [1]

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MICRO-UNIT COMMUNITY ITERATION A Housing units cluster around a common core and the subsequent stacks arrange in the site and beyond to available space on the other side and below the train tracks according to access to light. Public spaces are located at and below ground level.

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ITERATION R Housing units are stacked, but in this case, the core goes through the center of the units, creating pylon-type structures. Public spaces are arranged in various heights according to program, necessity, and views.

Grade School [1] Residential Unit [300]

College [1] Transportation [2] Adults Public Services [8] Elderly Restaurant [16] K-12 Youths Bar [3] Families RESIDENTS

Goods [12] College Students

VISITORS

Services [43] Young Professionals Office [5] Commuters Apartment [40] Tourists House [1045] Immigrants Live Theatre [2] Park [5]

Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

INFRASTRUCTURE

PRIVATE

RETAIL FOOD

Bar [1]

BUSINESS

EDUCATION

Multi-Use Room [...]

Market [1]

Restaurant [1]

SOCIAL

ENTERTAINMENT

Communal Area [...]

Coffee Bar [1]

RECREATION

RESIDENTIAL

Market [1] Prepared Foods [...]

CONNECT

Gallery [1]

Prepared Foods [...]

Movie Theatre [1]

Cooking Classroom [2] ADD

Gym [1] PUBLIC

Gym [1]

Coffee Bar [1]

Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

Cooking Classroom [2]

Restaurant [1] Bar [1]

Art[1]

RM

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PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE

2/273/06

CONCEPT The goal of this project was not to create a project, but rather to create a canvas for redevelopment.

APPROACH Upon looking at the neighborhood we realized that there were several vacant sites. We thought that the neighborhood could not be revitalized through just expansion. Rather than creating one new town center, it was our concept to connect multiple town centers. We looked primarily at three areas which were disjointed, but viewed as critical to the town.

The way in which we thought to connect these areas was through a literal bridge which would begin to realign the town axis by enfolding, entangling, and implying both existing and new spaces.

vacancy clusters

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RM

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Define Townscape

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Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

Market [1] ENFOLD

Prepared Foods [...]

Coffee Bar [1] Restaurant [1]

ENTANGLE

Bar [1] Cooking Classroom [2]

IMPLY

Gym [1] Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

RM

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Define Townscape

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Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

Market [1] ENFOLD

Prepared Foods [...]

Coffee Bar [1] Restaurant [1]

ENTANGLE

Bar [1] Cooking Classroom [2]

IMPLY

Gym [1] Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

RM

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Vacant Site [Closest to Transit Center]

Defi Vacant Buildings [At Milwaukee & Lawrence]

Vacant Buildings [Main Cluster on Milwaukee]

RM

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fine Townscape

Residential Unit [300] Communal Area [...]

Market [1] ENFOLD

Prepared Foods [...]

Coffee Bar [1] Restaurant [1]

ENTANGLE

Bar [1] Cooking Classroom [2]

IMPLY

Gym [1] Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

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ENTRY/ BUS STOP

CHECKOUT

SUPPORT SPACE

PREPARED FOODS

MARKET

AXIS TO BRIDGE

HOUSING UNITS

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A

A

90

RM

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1 Day After Completion

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5 Years After Completion

RM 10 Years After Completion

15 Years After Completion

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PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE APPROACH The bridge connects from Wilson Park to Robers Square Park and creates three clusters in between as explored before. In this iteration, we dove further into the realities of these sites and the programs they would host. Rather than evenly dividing the programs they are intertwined throughout and unique areas of residential and retail stand alone or come together in how we envision our proposition being used.

North

North

Wilson Park

Wilson Park

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3/063/20

Roberts Square

Roberts Square

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Grade School [1] College [1] Transportation [2] Adults Public Services [8] Elderly Restaurant [16] K-12 Youths Bar [3] Families RESIDENTS

Goods [12] College Students

VISITORS

Services [43] Young Professionals Office [5] Commuters Apartment [40] Tourists House [1045] Immigrants Live Theatre [2] Park [5] Art[1]

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INFRASTR

RETA

FOO

RECREA

SOC

BUSIN

RESIDEN

ENTERTAI

EDUCA

Residential Unit [250] Communal Area [...]

RUCTURE

PRIVATE

AIL

OD

Prepared Foods [...]

CONNECT

Coffee Bar [1]

ATION

Restaurant [1]

CIAL

Bar [1]

NESS

NTIAL

INMENT

ATION

Market [1]

Retail [...]

ADD

Gym [1] PUBLIC

Movie Theatre [1] Multi-Use Room [...]

Gallery [1]

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BRIDGE The bridge occurs on three separate levels depending on the use of traffic. Along the main street of Milwaukee Avenue, it meets the ground and travels to the park. It then winds up through retail spaces until reaching the market of the main site. This market gives access to the transit center before rising again to surpass the highway and rail tracks.

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CRITIQUE There was a lot of discussion regarding the practicality of a literal bridge and the multiple levels it would exist on. It was thought that without clear focuses on each of the site, and a strong argument for the bridge, it would not be necessary or successful in our goals.

RESPONSE We agreed that our bridge was lacking a compelling argument for justification, but did not feel that it would be unsuccessful. We would continue on the project to defend the ideas and opportunities that the bridge had for the neighborhood, but not to be attached to the form or way in which we approached it.

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56’

24’

8’

0

Scale: 1/32” = 1’ 120’

56’

24’

8’

0

NORTH

120’

NORTH

Scale: 1/32” = 1’

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PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE The neighborhood has islands of activity which are not connected due to the buildings between them and the hindering motor traffic going through them.

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3/203/24

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The main site is a heart in our system and provides movement through the arteries to the clusters of opportunity along the bridge and beyond to the parks and neighborhoods

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DAY 1

YEAR 5

YEAR 15

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112

56’

24’

8’

0

NORTH

Scale: 1/32” = 1’ 120’

56’

24’

8’

NORTH

Scale: 1/32” = 1’ 120’

0

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PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC RESIDENT TRAFFIC

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WORKSHOP

VIRGINIA TECH + TECNOLOGICO DE MONTERREY

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3/27

Group project with Ryan Myers, Arturo Ponce, Mariana Baidón BACKGROUND Designing a masterplan or making an urban development strategy involves many actors, data, opinions, policies, programs and restrictions. An urban project is a complex project by definition. Developing a good strategy means a continuous weighting, balancing and shifting between many interests, to be combined into one integrated approach. In practice, many different stakeholders will monitor and fight for their often conflicting interests as plans come along. The less compromised these interests will be during the design process, the more successful the result.

Apart from the complexity of these different layers of ‘input’, a planning process can take up to several decades. If architecture is a slow profession by the nature of the material and organizational reality, urbanism seems inert. Set aside the modern Asian building speed, developing a coherent and productive city fabric takes time. over time policies change, technology develops, markets collapse, and people change their minds. Being a victim to these complicated and constantly changing forces over such considerable time spans, realizing urban plans seems like a ‘mission impossible’.

How can urban planners and architects keep charge of these projects? How does one manage and integrate all data involved in the design process? How does one streamline the interests of cities, investors, developers, people and businesses over time? IN short; how can we tackle the problem of long-term complexity in the design process?

Bold and strong visions are needed to cope with the complexity and multiplicity of contemporary large assignments,. In order to realize this we need to understand the given assignment beyond the simple program by involving the knowledge of the multilayered dimension of contemporary cities. Most often a paradoxical issue or a key argument emerges when facing contrasting ambitions. The architect should realize the translation of these conditions in spatial languages and visions, which could be shared or understood by many actors. The first step is to visualize them in powerful, meaningful images that are at the same time intriguing and explanatory.

How do you create a substantial and sustainable density in delicate landscapes? Or how to create urban quality in devaluating environments? or plan for a more productive development while being more energy efficient?

RE-IMAGINING JEFFERSON PARK In a one-day exercise, how can the central area of Jefferson Park (specifically around the terminal) be re-programmed, re-planned or re-imagined What systematic changes can disrupt latency?

Think BIG... What could Jefferson Park be in 100 years?

PROMPT Research by design: Having a very limited amount of time, resou rces, and development input, creates excellent circumstances to test radical interventions and scenarios. This is a short term, pressure-cooker exercise to test if strong concepts cold battle long-term complexity. Lets develop bold concepts, scenarios, and visualizations for Chicago that later can be regenerated in more manicured and evaluated forms. Big plans are good, so are small plans - as long as their effect is substantial.

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Roberts Square Park

Jefferson Park

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JOBS

HOUSING

FOOD

ENTERTAINMENT

SPORTS

ECOLOGY

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TAKEAWAY The project done during the workshop had a similar theme to the goals we were approaching in the studio project. In analyzing the urban condition and devising a way to expand the neighborhood, we took an even more dramatic approach. At a tighter scale than before, we took the transit center as the center of the neighborhood and created a dense urban condition around it over the highway and train lines. This made us think about the city of Chicago as a whole and how a hub away from the downtown and with Jefferson Park’s proximity to the airport could have. We thought about the identity of the neighborhood and what parts of its existing identity could be incorporated into the new plan, and also what the plan would mean in terms of creating a new one.

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PROGRAMMATIC CONJECTURE APPROACH After completely disregarding the original assigned site to study the potential of neighborhood growth, I went back to look at what the site itself had to offer.

Much like earlier iterations, the form of the building takes into consideration a set of surrounding factors. In this iteration, however, there is more attention placed into how the pieces of the building can overcome the density required on a relatively small site.

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3/284/10

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UNITS

RETHINKING In thinking about the necessary density required on the site, I thought about the efficiency of the actual units themselves. A person is required to live in 300 square feet of space in the name of efficiency. By using this plan however, each person requires their own enclosure and set of everything inside (kitchen, bathroom, etc.) and in reality an uncomfortable way to live. It is more logical to double the space of a single unit, but provide comfortable space for each of them. This then halves the number of amenities needed per person.

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PRO F E S S I O N A L PR AC T I C E PROJECT TIMELINE

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PRACTITIONER LECTURES LAURA GRACIA SHIFFRIN CARL D’SILVA DREW RANIERI CHIP VON WEISE DON COPPER

?!

PRACTITIONER INTERVIEWS CASEY RENNER | SOM IKER GIL | MAS STUDIO DON COPPER | GREC XUAN FU | SOM LUIS MONTERRUBIO | CHICAGO P+D BRIAN LEE | SOM TIM SWANSON | CANNONDESIGN PAUL O’CONNOR | SOM NATHAN KIPNIS | KIPNIS ARCHITECTS

HYPOTHETICAL FIRM

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PROJECT TIMELINE

PREDESIGN Defining the problem Teach client possibilities Site, climate, energy performance goals DELIVERABLES Documentation

S C H E M AT I C DESIGN

DESIGN D E V E LO P M E N T

CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS + BIDDING

~2-3 months Client expectation with design strategies Cost estimate Detailed narrative Quality, volume of space, cost expectations Time extremely dependent on size and scope

~3-4 months Finish/resolve design completely Get into technical issues of project sufficiently to understand how they impact design

~4-6 months Commit to design decisions Engineers start building packages Early trade contractors -start back and forth

DELIVERABLES Cost Estimate -internal estimator -external consultant Preliminary Design

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DELIVERABLES Draft of specifications document -extremely detailed and organized delineation of everything -installation requirements

DELIVERABLES Early bid packages at beginning

CONSTRUCTION ~12-18 months

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LECTURE

LAURA FISHER + GRACIA SHIFFREN 2.18.15 LAURA Laura has experience in the field of architecture from an architecture and business administration point of view. Her career is established as a corporate architect in the real estate world. She worked for SOM while in school and continued to work with Bertrand Goldberg, which handles the real estate for major entities such as Bank of America Corporation, Walt Disney UK, and Pritzker family.

LECTURE NOTES As young professionals entering a field many of us are still very much unfamiliar with, Laura explains various aspects of the professions, the branches of it, the things we should be doing at our point in it, and where we should go.

There are a wide range of people that she encounters, including: -Developer -Financer -Legal -Title company -Marketing -Architects -Engineers -Design Consultants -Tenants -General Contractors -Subcontractors -Accountants -Project Management -Building Service Providers -Real Estate Brokers

She advises to:

know your skill set

and

know your value

We should be on our way to getting our credentials so that we can get our licenses and soon as possible with motivation and rigor. These include: -NCARB -LEED In addition to having a portfolio that shows our work, we should also start career folders that show other experiences that might be valuable in the future to showcase.

-fliers from events you organized Find applicable volunteer experience “It’s not a team, it’s a crowd”

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GRACIA intellectual property - copyrights law -litigators transaction

“You have to do the dance” TAKEAWAY There are so many branches of the profession that it cannot be put simply under the umbrella term “architecture.” An architect interacts with several different parties in a single project and must know the expectations of each one in order to make the project not only possible, but also with all appropriate considerations.

LECTURE

CHIP VON WEISE FEES 2.23.15 | VON WEISE ASSOCIATES LECTURE NOTES

TAKEAWAY

The projects are directed by the needs of the client and to them the value of the house is more than the budget, there is emotional value and pride with the project.

There is not a copy paste method between different projects, even in a small firm. Each project has unique clients and is therefore itself unique. This goes down to a major driving force of any project, the budget. The fees can be outlined several different ways and even can be changed and adjusted, though at reluctance from the architect, throughout the process. There is often difficulty in dealing with the perceived value of an architect because there is so much behind the scene knowledge that is required for the profession than a client may not see or understand and therefore the architect must not undervalue himself and the profession in the process. It is a tightrope balancing act that has to be secured through contracts.

Fees of a project 12-15% of the total project cost, about 17% for smaller projects The budget is stated upfront and there are different fee structures. Budget estimates are determined before construction documents to see if changes need to be made.

Fixed Fee -extra to go back, add, or change -to do custom work (windows, hardware, fixtures, etc) Hourly -schematic design -construction administration - charged as monthly fee Percentage -based off construction cost It is important to bring in contractor expertise early because they can inform the design to be more efficient, rather than trying to force something in later.

Example project: Chip is currently working on a multi-million dollar land and house for part year residence. The house is $7-8 million and landscape will be $4-5 million. The project is so extensive that they have partnered with other firms. Begins process with sketching and diagrams. Graphically presents projects in hand drawings, not for technical clarity, but for emotional value.

Clients feel like they commissioned an artist.

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LECTURE

DREW RANIERI CONTRACTS 2.23.15 | SCB LECTURE NOTES Profession Business Practice

O

Contracts -require a minimum of two parties -cover many topics such as project, scope, schedule, work, product, risk and responsibility, compensation Parties in a contract: Owner Contractor Architect Developer

C

A TRADITIONAL

C O A DESIGN/BUILD

design build - more efficient with clear liability Client Consultants: -legal - zoning, for client -financial -marketing -design -structural -geo-technical -MEP -acoustical -sustainability -enclosure

O C A OWNER CLIENT

C O

D

Clearly outline risk and responsibility

A BUILD TO SUIT

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Compensation:

Conceptual Design

5%

Schematic Design 15% 33% Design Development 20% 50% Construction Documents 20% 33% Bidding 5% Const. Administration 35% 33% 50%

What are the deliverables?

-contingency

- higher at beginning of process, about 20%

- lower if later in the process, about 3% Budget lowered - more work for less money (if payed on percentage) Careful working with contractors as to not assume other’s responsibility “I noticed this....” vs “you should fix this...”

Means and methods: Construction Documents explain quantity of work Project Manual describes quality of work -neither should explain how IMPRESSION

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LECTURE

DON COPPER 3.2.15 | GREC

LECTURE NOTES

Type of work defines firm

Firm has about 20 employees Identifies firm as a small boutique firm with corporate services

“must be proactive and reactive to market�

Partners work on projects throughout -rather than just bringing them in -SOM is opposite in this sense Financial dynamics of clients -the priority of projects, but takes from the design process Projects in Dubai are paid upfront, which is unheard of in the United States -projects in US are funded by banks and not marketed until complete Work is mostly in the US It is like designing a product and then marketing it to customer Collaborative work environment -relatively flat business model -no specialization -from schematic design to construction Value of service -there will always be cheaper services, but it will show in the quality -GREC markets as a premium service with premium results Company growth can be tricky -look for reliable people -must maintain level of business to support Currently working on 12 projects -pursuing 4 more

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Types of behind the scenes staff -Business manager -accounting -Website is outsourced -Accountant

-tax strategy -Legal - attorneys -contracts -lawsuits In the case of inconsistencies between project documents, can specify that Project manual overrides construction documents

TAKEAWAY There is a lot of discussion about the profession of architecture and the expectations of it as providing a product. In reality, it is a service that results in a product. People, especially clients, must understand that in order to get a quality product, there is a rigorous process that must occur, which is the service. Don explains that in his firm, they market the service as a premium quality service.

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LECTURE

C A R L D’ S I LVA LOUVRE RENOVATION 3.4.15 | JAHN LECTURER BACKGROUND

LECTURE NOTES

What is the project?

What is the design concept?

Louvre: Connect parts of existing Turn campus for .... to public space Great axis of Paris ends at Louvre La Defense, Arc d’ Triomphe, Obelisk - Project at terminus Geometry supports design concept -new space -doesn’t block views -lets light in -connection -image for entrance -doesn’t compete with existing Used to be parking lot - drug park -now safe and constantly used

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Example - Pullman - adaptive reuse of Pullman Warehouse -create images that support intent and stand on their own -design concept doesn’t come from programmatic requirement Start presentation with concept Present it like a novel with chapters, rather than a series of short stories

It is not about final project It is about the process Address concept for apartments -light, views, apartment

TAKEAWAY In relating Carl’s talk with ideas of my own project, I can see clearly through the examples he gave of the Louvre and Pullman Warehouse not only the importance of a clear idea, but also the matter of how to effectively communicating it. The Louvre has many similarities to our current project, with its presence on an axis in relation to the entire city, and also the relationship between its own parts and how that informs a public space.

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INTERVIEW

CASEY RENNER ASSOCIATE | SOM 3.4.15

DISCUSSION

What are the levels after Associate?

From there the levels are Associate Director and Director.

What have been some significant work experiences you have had, specifically with Howeler and Yoon and Vincent James?

I worked with Ralph Rapson for a while, but it wasn’t progressive and I didn’t see it growing with the way the profession was going. After grad school I worked for Vincent James, and they would calll me to work during grad school on competitions they were doing. So I was just there back and forth as they needed me. The type of work they were doing wasn’t that diverse. They were doing a lot of expensive homes, which is fine, but they didn’t seem to be expanding to other markets. They had been trying to get a project for a high rise, but other than that their work was in this narrow scope. Meejin Yoon was my professor 2nd year grad school for fall studio. I was pretty active in the school and worked with Howeler and Yoon for about 8 months. Meejin was the department head at MIT and Eric worked for GSD.

Do you plan on progressing to those levels?

I went into the job with the impression that my first job would be an extension of my education. That’s not to say I always have a foot out the door, but it isn’t going to be my whole career.

What do you do at your level?

People in the office are in studios, and each studio has two different categories. Entry level employees often aren’t classified, but the others are either in design or technical. I am a Senior Designer, so my role is to come up with the initial ideas and goals of a project and then pass the concept to a Partner, where they analyze the needs of the project. That’s not to say that I don’t have to understand the technical aspect of a project, there is still a responsibility, for example, of how a curtain wall is hung, but I am not going into the drawings and detailing mullions.

How did you jump from Boston to Chicago?

The work they H+Y doing was speculative in 2008, there were not that many projects coming in and I was looking at other places. I knew Andrew at the Chicago SOM and I then started there.

What position did you start at SOM and where are you now?

There is a classification for people at SOM. Entry level is C level and then it goes up to D until F. I started of at D level and then went to E and am now currently an Associate.

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How many people are part of each studio?

I am currently doing 4 projects, and it ranges for each of them from 1, well 0, to 4 people.

Do you work directly with the Partners?

Not as closely as we used to. They have a lot of projects and it is often hard to include them. I actually prefer it that way because then I get a greater role in the project and they will come in trusting my decisions. And also in that way, it ends up being more rewarding.

Do you also have interactions with other people, such as clients?

I do also talk to clients, more so now than before. With projects in China, communication is more complicated; theres a different scale and time zone, so its difficult to to manage talking to many people on all these schedules.

With projects in Chicago, I am able to talk in person with people, even over coffee or drinks and it is a lot more casual. Also with the proximity it is a lot easier to react to a project.

I guess even current technology, such as Skype, doesn’t even remedy that.

There is more than just the words or conversation. I can send over files to China and not hear back for several days and then I don’t know what they think and if it has something to do with the project or their character. Here you pick up nuances people have and from there you can know what it means in these instances where you might not hear back right away.

So you’re working on projects mostly in Chicago currently?

Yes, I currently have 3 to 4 projects here in the city. The amount of projects has increased over time, normally I would have 2 to 3.

What is is like to work on several projects at a time?

The schedules of each project are oscillating, and sometimes they match up with the other projects and sometimes they don’t. So there will be weeks we’ll be juggling everything at the same time and other weeks, such as after bidding, when we have several weeks or months of slow work. I am currently on two projects with the same client and they ask us to present both projects at the same time. You end up relying on the team, and then with more experience theres more responsibility and projects.

How is the work different between projects in China and Chicago?

Its totally different to work on a project for so long and only see it in renderings and then hope that it turns out, whereas here in Chicago I am able to go to the job site and theres that immediacy.

How often would you go to China for projects?

I went to Honk Kong about seven times, which certainly had benefits with airline miles, but its a lot of time flying.

You mentioned changes in the role since when you started. Do these changes have to do with a direction the profession might be going and did you see these changes when you started your career?

The type of work is always changingWhen I was first starting, I was looking for these jobs at firms that would be considered middle sized firms, which is against the article we discussed and trajectory of the market. I had this plan to go to Europe and work there because, like I said before, I viewed the years after school as an extension of my education, so I didn’t have plans on settling in these places I wanted to go.

TAKEAWAY Treat opportunities as an extension of education. Don’t limit yourself in opportunities. Know where you want to go, and how far you want to go into a job. Always leave yourself the possibility to move.

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INTERVIEW

IKER GIL 3.31.15 | MAS CONTEXT

BACKGROUND Iker Gil is an architect, urban designer, and director of MAS Studio. Iker is also the editor in chief of the quarterly design journal MAS Context and the editor of the book “Shanghai Transforming” (ACTAR, 2008). He also curated a gallery as part of the exhibition “Chatter Architecture Talks Balk” at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the exhibitions “Shanghai Transforming” at the Chicago Architecture Foundation and Virginia Tech, and “Synchronizing Geometry” held at S.R. Crown Hall (IIT).

In addition, he is the co-director of the Chicago Expander program and has taught studios at the School of Architecture at UIC and Masters Project Preparation at the College of Architecture at IIT.

DISCUSSION J: just kind of going back to you before all the things you’ve generated. What particular aspects of your background and upbringing influence how you design architecture.

I think were a couple of things that I either knew or didn’t know at the time.

One of the things is that my family isn’t solely an architect. So I didn’t grow up being exposed necessarily to architecture or having a tradition. The city I grew up in, Bilbao, was very industrial and very engineered. But my parents, my father actually, is very interested in modern design with objects. I was always exposed to industrial design and graphic design and thinking about design. Ive always wanted to become and architect for whatever reason. Its not clear why, but Ive always wanted to. I think everywhere that I’ve been has taught me something in a way. In Bilbao was very industrial and it had a lot of problems, but then it changed and transformed very quickly. So one thing I learned was that even though it looked very bad, every single city has assets, and if you think about it you don’t have to copy any other city, you have to think about whats valuable, what they have. If you think about and you go for it, you’re going to make a huge change. Part of the work that I do is trying to understand the things that city already has but are under appreciate and how you can do something about that. I moved to Barcelona and then from Barcelona. How Barcelona, because of the climate too, how everything. the use of public space, everything is connected with small plazas. how everything is engaged with the city and how do you create those moments where people come together I think there is also a lot of energy in terms of graphic designers and book stores and I really enjoy that energy of people coming together and discussing things. And when I

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moved here, thats one of the things I wanted to do. And there is not that much of that here. As a designer and architect, how you can see spaces where people can come together and creating those platforms. So I think all this experiences of growing up and moving and seeing some of these things and the people that you work with show you that there is a different way and you just learn from those things.

J: Thats wonderful. We have the same idea for thesis next year and were really into adaptable reuse and program design and sustainability . So what does sustainability mean to you?

I’m not interested in sustainability in that sense… I think that everybody says that, but I think that it can also be socially sustainability, economical, and environmental, so that portion in a way is env. but instead of doing things the old way and just slapping a solar panel, how can you begin to generate things with the least resources. Just make something that is viable and fosters a place for things that are already going on in the neighborhood and the city. You find ways of connecting people. That’s a way, when it all clicks, thats when I think its sustainable. I don’t think that just because its environmental, if the building doesn’t make sense, I don’t care if it has a solar panel, no one is going to be using it. And paying attention to whats there so you can formalize that, but you don’t make something that is alien to people otherwise the people won’t embrace it.

I was wondering what your educational background was in each of these places and how that influences. my education is strictly architecture. I grew up in Bilbao and lived there for 18 years. I moved to Barcelona to study architecture. I got a scholarship to

come to IIT, so I did my last year at IIT here in chicago, moved back to spain, go my thesis there, worked there as an architect, and then moved back to the us because I got another scholarship to do my masters here at UIC. but even my masters was architecture. My background is purely architect, but every single project I’ve done, Im very interested in other design disciplines so I go as much as possible to photography exhibitions, graphic design and industrial design, and Im very interested in those things. So the upbringing is architecture, but I’m interested in other things.

A: Thats something you talked about today, how you interact with all these other disciplines. Do you find that you interact with other disciplines and find that certain ones have certain impact in what you do?

Well I work both here and in the architecture office. I also do other projects with other people. Ive been tweaking this, but depending on the project I put together teams.. so for example, one of the that was mentioned was the documentation of marina city,so we work with a photographer, and it was wasn’t my initial intention or idea, but just combining that. I think if its a good collaboration, it goes somewhere that you didn’t anticipate, and it makes the project better. If we work with photographers, and we work a lot with graphic designers and artists and try to bring them to some of the projects to bring them to the generation of the project. I think from each one of them you learn something.

J: I think to dig into an example. Whats your most unconventional outlet of creativity or mismatched pairing that you can think of?

I don’t think that there is anything specifically. Everything is unexpected, for example, working with graphic designers and Rick Valicenti, you learn and yo work in a very different way. So from a practical aspect, but also conceptual, like what you can do. I think there is nothing that seems so strange that you don’t find a common theme. I think that if you don’t find a common theme then thats also a problem. You have to find that common language, but at the same time, and thats something that I kind of enjoy.

J: one of the things that we’ve also had arguments within the academic world was how the software systems that we use and represent things with may alter the way we design. Do you have a certain opinion with how the method of techniques by which design affect your architecture and the office?

I think all those are tools, that you are the one who has to be driving that conversation. So right now you have an unprecedented array of tools that you can use to present your work. But it’s this concept, the stories of how you wanted to present it, so whats going to make you design. You want to use this tool, or combine this tool, I don’t think that one is the best way.

Maybe one makes a better rendering, or diagram. I don’t think the tools that you have are imposing anything, its just each one is good. You’re writing with a pen or pencil, they’re two different tools, but maybe one of them the strength the thickness is going communicate certain characteristics that the other is not.

J: So following up the using of the schools, so how firms rep work with heavy duty rendering. Do you have an opinion about the possible misrepresentation with these tools.

I don’t use these tools. Again, its about what you want to communicate with these tools. With a hyperrealistic rendering, when you show that to the client, its something that they have to respond but can’t engage with because its so finished you’re setting the boundary. You might also provide a reality with false expectations with how its going to be used. But you have to know what the audience is. So if you’re talking to another architect, you see an axon or section,, you can communicate perfectly what you want because you both speak the same language. But if you show the same thing to a client, you’re going to miss things, because thats the first time they see it and you won’t get what you want out of the conversation.

A: In the case of mas context, when you cater to such a wide range of audiences, how do you tailor the content?

I mean you understand that certain aspects, for example, if you do an essay about architecture that you’ve done, it will probably appeal to an architect.

But we try to combine different techniques so that if someone doesn’t read the essay, they can look at the diagrams or look at the photo essays. We understand that not everyone is going to like everything, but if someone that is unrelated to design that would never get an architecture or design magazine all of a sudden gets hooked by that photograph, it makes you question that. You do the photo essay, the diagram, the short interview, you get more chances of getting someones attention. IT has to be accurate, through, and provide new content. It has to be something that someone is willing to spend their time with. When you give them a magazine, you are asking them to read something and asking something of them and you should provide them with something worth reading and their time.

J: So as a producer of these publishings, do you read other journals or was there a precedent to initiate yours?

There are other architects that I liked while I was studying and that I collected. So it was very hardcore plan section, beautiful photograph and I liked the quality of the photographs they commissioned. This was a few years ago, now you see them everywhere. I also like to read things unrelated to architecture, Fodors magazine was something that was interesting to me, speaking to a specific topic looking to broad social and political issues and how they used graphic design was very interesting to me. I would say now a lot of it is very separated, or its not exclusively architecture.

J: and od you think the mix that you’ve now created between architecture and social issues have interested a larger audience, not just architects and their friends, but a complete non-architect.

Yeah, thats part of whats interesting to me. All of our work... It is great when my father in law who has nothing to do with architecture or when I talk to my father, who is kind of forced to read it, but he is very honest that he was interested in this thing, but not very interested in that. It engages people who traditionally would not read those magazines. Everyone uses the city, so we are all part of this and people need to see what we can provide and what other people are doing and I think people enjoy those connections.

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A: I was just wondering if there were other projects in addition to the publication? I guess you’re always busy, but if there were other things you wanted to mention.

Well the publication is always ongoing, and throughout that there are a lot of events that we generate and its a lot of content and a lot of time spent talking to people and events that are different . So in the next 8 weeks we have 8 different events, from studio visits to film screening, so thats always related to the journal. We have grand proposals, but then in the office I do a lot of different wide range of work, from master planning to renovating a kitchen. This show that we are curating at the art institute in 2 weeks, so I’m always interested what is the outlet to talk about things that are interesting.

important to you. You are in the studio and the brief is exactly the same for everyone. What is going to set you apart, is how you interpret the brief. Out of the 10 things they tell you, what is the one that you think is interesting.

When you visit the site, someone might be interested in the social aspect, someone... the shadow, and use that as your tool and they are unique to you. So when you do a portfolio, its has to be well presented and technical and good as possible, but also how you organize the project and how much information you want to present of the project. So maybe you need to produce more afterwards, or redo a piece or do a diagram. So understand what you’re going to say and then creating the information to support that and just that when it gets muddy it gets hard to understand what you’re going after.

Whenever you see that you can add something,

J: I know that you have touched that there is a certain interest in the social housing addition that you did. But was there a personal addition that when it was completed it moved you and changed the structure...

Ive always been very interested in the idea of social housing. The idea of the public and being able to provide the same services to everybody no matter how much money you have or don’t have. So public housing is interesting, but the connotations that it has here and the problems it gets that no one really talks about really bothers me. So if there was a platform where some of those things could be present. So public housing, the use of public space, the investment of quality architecture in the public and in the city and how we can, no matter how many resources you have, you can always aim higher and thats important as a practitioner.

J: And to that, with the collection of your public work, is there an ultimate goal, or is it about the process?

I mean, its ongoing. There is no programming that is the same, these are the 15 or 20 topics that we have to cover. I think as the public evolves, you evolve as an architect, and other things are interesting, you meet new people, those open your eyes to things you wouldn’t otherwise have been exposed to, so that opens up new things. Thats something Im very curious about by nature, so I want to learn more about many people and there many things that people do and also I use those to then explore more things. So in a way, the public gives me a good framework to keep me on my toes and you always have to be looking at what people are doing. And maybe it doesn’t apply to just an issue, you’re looking at things and think that something might apply to something else, but its not there, and then a year later, but you remember that person, and now it makes a lot of sense. But it kind of gives you that structure to always be looking at things whether its online, or attending events.

J: I guess my last question is, Ive actually read some of the editions and they are very intriguing and interesting, and just going through it there is a narrative to them and the way the framework is there is a way to relate all of them visually, but content is very thorough and it all relates back. So I guess do you have any advice for us as young architects, or in producing a portfolio? i think in terms of the portfolio its important to communicate what is

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just go ahead and do it.

If you’re walking down the street and you see an empty lot and you say “oh it would be great if it was a farmers market” and then you go and do it. It doesn’t have to be the most thorough thing, you can just make one image and go to city hall. A lot of times its just a one week project and that changes the way you have a conversation with someone. So you go and say that there is this lot here and that it could be two different things. It could be a house or a farmers market and you go to the person who owns that has control over that and you say “you know what, there is something there, maybe you should consider doing the farmers market or the house and say those are the idea, and they say they can’t do the house because theres no zone for that, but the farmers market could work” so then you’re having a conversation that is proactive instead of just going to them to say “you know, you suck because you are not doing anything with this” you might want the same, but the way you approach the program. My suggestion is you do your things and you will learn about how you want to work, what you like, what you don’t like, so then you can control more of what you want to do in the end. And use as much as you can while you’re in school while you have instruction, you have professors, resources.

TAKEAWAY It is often said that good things come to those who wait. After speaking with Iker, I thought more that it was that good things come to those who pursue it. Projects are a series of small obstacles that you must find resolutions to and address and that requires action. There is also an importance to putting yourself in situations and environments that help you grow. With the work of Mas Context, Iker is part of a publication that caters to several different people of a wide range of disciplines by having a variety of article topics. As part of getting interest and writers, he interacts with a variety of people who also like to think and be involved with new ideas.

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INTERVIEW

DON COPPER PRINCIPAL | GREC 4.1.15 BACKGROUND Don Copper was raised in Baltimore and graduated from the architecture school at Virginia Tech, with one year of study at the Architectural Association in London. Don has lived and practiced architecture in Chicago since 1981, and received his Illinois professional license in 1986. Following design and project management roles in offices such as Murphy/Jahn and Destefano+Partners, Don became a Principal with GREC in 1999, with the goal of delivering large-scale projects within a boutique studio environment. Don is the liaison at GREC with the Chicago Studio program of the Virginia Tech architecture school, wherein the firm hosts students each semester, and Don visits Blacksburg regularly as a professional mentor.

A life-long visual artist, Don’s paintings, drawings and prints are shown regularly, and are in many private collections throughout the country. Don is involved with many visual and performing arts organizations in Chicago, and has served as Board Chair of Famous Door Theater.

Why architecture, what drew you to it?

Probably like everybody else, I as a kid showed creativity along with an aptitude for math and science. That combination usually meant that architecture was architecture, engineering, and those kinds of worlds. One of art and science. But I really didn’t know that much about it. When I was a kid they use a publish these house plans magazines and I used to spend a lot of time just looking at these magazines and they were usually unconventional house plans like houses of the future. I used to study those and then I took drafting in high school and one thing led to another.

Did you project when you were in school or younger that the position you are in now is something that you would be doing?

Yes and no, I guess I did, like everyone I thought that one day I would have my own office, but I had no idea what that meant and I am still learning what that means and it is completely different from what I anticipated.

Are there any aspects of your childhood and upbringing that you think that have shaped how you design, not only in your projects, but also how you format the office structure?

The office structure is its own question, the office structure is deliberately based on the experience of myself and David Ervin from when we were at Cowgirl Hall. What struck us about that environment was the open, unpartitioned workspace. In fact, when we were there they used to have lofts. There was a wooden structure around the perimeter of each of the quadrants that had a second level of desks. So it was double decker desks

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around the perimeter and studio in the middle. There were representatives of each of the 5 years in that same space. So the ability to see what other people were working on and engage them in conversation about what they were working on, I thought was a really valuable model and so did Dave, so once we started working together to figure out what the environment should be, thats what we based it on.

And to continue onto where the office is today, how is the collaboration, do you collaborate on all levels/disciplines?

Yeah, that is the idea, the idea is by having this open office with pin up walls.

Its a little harder now when most of what people are working on is on the computer. So its a little bit harder to see at any given time as opposed to having drawings and models on the desks and drawings on the wall. But we still try to encourage people to share what they are working on with each other and ask each other what they are doing as much as possible because I believe that makes everything better.

The other part of that question about how I personally approach design, I think that the artwork has a lot to do with how I approach design because for me it is a lot about experience, and not so much form. And I would say to come up with a catch phrase, I would say “form follows experience” which is loosely related to function, but more importantly, what is the experience of the people who use the building every day. To me that is what architects can bring to the rest of the world. I mean everyone knows buildings. Professionals, especially students, everyone knows as much about architecture as an architecture from a subconscious experience perspective.

Architects may focus more on it consciously and may focus on it technically.

Everyone is an expert on environment, whether they know it or not. What we have the ability to do is to focus on it and craft it into something particular, or into a sequence or variety of experiences, control light, control view, control the sound.

Our interests overlap and thats why we combined the interview today and that is powerful to hear. I think a notion that we are both interested in is sustainability means a lot of different things is a word as a term by itself and how architects have described it going green and programmatic uses, so what does sustainability mean to you?

To me, sustainable design should just be a part of what we do. The effects of gravity and form are contexture, so the effects of how a building works with energy and light should be the same as that, it should just be inherent, to me its not a separate thing. Its not a special area of focus. Honestly, building buildings is inherently not environmentally friendly, both the process of building a building, the construction of a building in terms of the resources that are employed to build a building down to all the laborers driving to the construction site, what it takes to make concrete, what it takes to make steel, what it takes to take products to a site. All those things are highly impactful on the environment, so what we do is inherently not efficient, it is much more efficient to use buildings that already exist. But assuming that we are going to continue to build buildings so what you try to do is to try to do it in the most responsible way possible.

they were say, which they might not even know that they were saying it.

So in a way, were interpreters. Which is really kind of exciting part of the profession. So that’s to me, the core of pressing something to the client. There are also other audiences. Last night we had a community meeting for the hotel that were designing in the west loop. So that obviously is a completely different audience and in a lot of cases those audiences are not always friendly audiences. People don’t generally go out of their way to support things, but they will go out of their way to protest things. Now last night was very successful, and it was largely a show of successful, which is great, but I’ve also been to similar presentations where that hasn’t been the case.

So then you’re kind of translating again in another language which is how do you read the fears and concerns of the people who are speaking to you and respond to them in a way that you can mitigate those concerns. Usually they’re legitimate concerns, its like the way we already have to much traffic.

We already don’t have enough parking in this neighborhood and your building is too tall and will block our light and if you have a restaurant or a bar or something, will people be stumbling around drunk at 2 o’clock in the morning. SO those are all legitimate fears. Now there are more irrational protests. Like I don’t want any more development in this neighborhood, well its just not gonna happen. You live in a city and the city is going to continue to grow and change and gentrification is usually another concern. That one usually bridges the rational and irrational because its natural for people to want things to stay the way they are and yet nothing does ever.

We actually went to a Jefferson park community meeting.

Backtracking to what you were talking about before with your artwork, I’ve seen some of your work online and like you said it is very emotional and abstract. So when you are talking about actual buildings which are actual things, how do you translate one to the other?

I’m not sure its possible and thats why I continue to do the artwork because of the limitations of building a building that aren’t present in making a painting is what drives me to continue to do that, but having said that there is no reason that the little discoveries that one can make in making a sculpture or painting a painting or singing a song or doing a dance, there is no reason that those things can’t somehow inform, either directly or indirectly, what you do in architecture.

And translating the way or techniques or representation between not just your artwork but to represent your building, what do you think is the most effective way for you or your firm to represent a project and how different representation should be between who your talking to. And to add another level, what are the different audiences you are presenting to?

There is the client first and foremost and usually, and this is a big part of our job, is to understand what the clients goals are. Obviously a lot of those are quantifiable, mostly financial, but if you’re lucky to have clients that also have another level of interest and quality in what they’re delivering then a lot of times you have to hear things that aren’t being said so that you can bring those other things into the project and also to inform how you might present things, both in terms of what you actually show them, and how you speak about it. You know, one of the things that is a good skill to have is to know how to hear what somebody is saying in a way that when you present to them a solution, you can describe it in the terms of what

Cool, so you experienced that.

The same things you said are the things we saw, the buildings are too tall, we don’t want new buildings in general, and the traffic.

And thats actually a reasonable thing to say, and you can’t actually say well thats not gonna happen, so you have to try to mitigate their fears and if you can’t you can’t, they have to be a willing audience to hear what you’re saying. It’s a good exercise to think about your work from that perspective.

How are you enhancing the neighborhood, how are you not doing more harm to the neighborhood. So you have to think about your work from that perspective. Ultimately work for the client, so if your project is not going to be beneficial to the neighborhood, then its not.

There was one comment by the traffic or coordinator for Chicago planner and he came to visit. He said well, if 80% of the bad comments are coming from people 80 and above, then you have to be in the perspective what is your actual audience. People don’t care about more jobs in the neighborhood because thats that their main concern, they don’t need a job. The greater good is generally to be more economic activity which floats all boats as they say. Its kind of the perspective to keep in mind with that particular audience.

Its interesting, we hear the same things between downtown Chicago and a quiet neighborhood.

What kind of materials did you present to the community.

The client ultimately decided what to show and what not to show. There was rendered perspective that showed the quality of the project and then a lot of floor plans to show the people what goes on inside that was mostly what it was in this particular case.

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INTERVIEW DON COPPER In general, what asset do you think you strive in to represent the firm and what does GREC provide as a firm that is their strongest asset to give to the client and design.

We don’t usually phrase it in terms of design. The answer to that question is normal I present it to the client as a level of quality of service. And we will touch on design, but design is only one part of all of the things. There is accountability the project has to the budget of the client, compliance with building code, project schedule because time is money, there is the experience that you already have with that kind of project, previous experience, which of course then begs the question of how you get the first one. We’ve been very lucky in that respect, with people willing to chance on us. We are working with related Midwest, which is a big developer in Chicago and they do a lot of big high quality work, they are known for high end residential development in Chicago and one of the projects were doing with them is an 800 ft tall tower that the design architect is Robert Stern, and were going to be the architect (for them?). Ok so were a 20 person firm who hasn’t worked on this related before, we’ve never done a building that tall, we’ve done buildings in the 2-300 ft range, so we have nothing comparable to show them. what we have to sell them on is the quality of service and the people that they’ll be working with and the attention to the project they’ll get, and the level of management of the project, because we have to manage this starchitect who has no idea who we are and yet, we have to have some level of authority over them in order to make this happen. So we’ve had a couple of meeting and we met with their chief architect and their chief construction guy and the president of the company and we go the job.

A lot of your projects are local, so are you able to do that often, or is it a transition to pick up these designers who are not in the area?

We like to think of everything as a transition, so yes and yes. This project will be big project for us, it will be like the ace hotel in LA in that it will bring a lot of attention, this project is getting a lot of attention because its the first Robert Stern commercial building and its going to be super tall. Taller than anything around it, not as tall as the Hancock or Trump, but its very tall.

So that will allow us to get more tall projects it will allow us to get more luxury residential projects, most of what we do to date is more market rate residential, which is great work, but its a whole different market and to talk about the geographic component. Now perhaps well get to do a luxury high-rise in some other city. Each thing builds and one thing that is really exciting that I was just thinking the other day, sometimes we get so busy that its hard to focus on what’s right in front of you, but were going to be delivering two fairly high profile projects this year, one is the Hilton garden inn with the pixelated facade on Wacker Dr. a Hilton garden inn in any other place would not get that much attention, but that wall. Another building that is going to go up that is starting to be closed on division st is going to get a lot of attention for a lot of reasons, one is the location, its going to be the first tall building in what used to be in the ….. green location for public housing, and because its the first project by this Portland developer who is taking a completely approach to market rate living in Chicago. Okay, so thats two this year, next year there are two more….

The hotel that we presented last night is going to be the ace hotel in Chicago, so its going to get a lot of attention, and theres another condo project should be finished next year. And then in 2017, the two related buildings that were doing should come online, which is the Robert Stern building, which should

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get a lot of attention, and the other related building is with design architect is Morris ….. and it will be his first building in Chicago.

So in 2015, 2016, 2017, as it looks now, well be delivering 2 high profile projects each year. So whoever doesn’t know who we are now will now in a few years.

Is it important to be published in publications?

We don’t have a firm stance on our public profile. To summarize it, I would say it is more important for the clients to know who we are than the architects know who we are. They don’t give us any work, in fact they take work away from us. So my position is that it is not as important for the architectural press, unless the clients read it, but clients read business publications. But were not ever going to compete with Frank Gehry for a building so thats fine, if we win awards, thats fine. I’m not against awards, but its not my highest priority.

Whats more important to me is that the business community understands that GREC can deliver quality, high performing projects successfully. Also, we don’t have a style, we treat every project as a unique thing, we don’t say, ok how do we bring our brand to the project. Our brand is not visible, its more in the services we provide and I like that. I don’t want our buildings to all look alike because I think each project is unique and should have a unique solution. So I like that you can’t really put a finger on what we do.

I think that’s great, you got this one style, what context or program or anything really or having a conversation.

And I don’t even mean to criticize people who have a style, it just doesn’t have any interest to us.

And with the scope of the work that you do, maybe it just doesn’t translate.

And that goes back to the art influence with what we do, because each time we sit down to make something it is its own thing. And it should be its own thing.

So with these project you have slated in the next few years, do you see your firm growing in a certain way, or is there a certain quality you’re trying to maintain with a certain size.

If we continue to succeed the way were succeeding were going to have to deal with the challenge of how do we grow and maintain what we have which is i think not only for the people who work here, but for the client a unique situation, so in a lot of cases its why people come to us, so it’s important to maintain. I don’t think we want to become a 200 person firm, because then were like the other 200 person firms. So that will probably be our biggest challenge int eh near future.

We are partners for a hypothetical firm.

I think its a great project for you to set up.

So a lot of the focus is to deal with the size, so we decided to have a smaller firm to have what you are mentioning, uniqueness in the project, efficiency

and every person knows what they’re doing and have a role that carries throughout. Is there something that is difficult in having this structure, or is there something you would fix ideally?

I think no. There is always some fine tuning to do, but we prefer this to be an organic thing and I like to tell people that were providing the environment, but they’re responsible for the culture. David, Greg and I are not interested in dictating what the culture should be. Which is kind of an interesting experiment. Were always having to either dial it up or down, usually up, because its hard to keep people encouraged to express themselves. people tend to think of workplace as a place where you have to behave in a certain way and respect certain authority, and to an extent thats true. We want to be an open forum of communication.

My final question is if there is any advice you could give us because a lot of our interest are to also do research and we have areas that we are trying to focus in thesis, with me mores adaptive reuse, and him daylighting and sustainability, so in that kind of mindset we do want to make a huge impact, and this is a really great start to hear what you’re saying, but is there any strong advice you could give us with finishing the Chicago program and fifth year and then making big moves?

to see some level of knowledge of auto cad and knowing the tools you’ll be using in the office are very important. Knowing how to put a building together, no one really expects you to know that at day 1. We look for people who demonstrate a self motivated personality and show work that demonstrate a high level of curiosity and interest in looking all over the world and bringing what you see into your work.

TAKEAWAY Architecture isn’t a formula. When on the road to where Don is today, he could not have planned for the events and outcomes and had to tackle them as they came. It is important to find your interest and follow where you can with rigor and motivation, but don’t expect to have it figured out. That being said, while in school, we cannot predict where we will be years down the line. So while in school, it is important to be the best creative mind you can be so that upon entering the profession, we can be ready and motivated for what is to come.

Ill give you my own opinion, its just an opinion, but I feel strongly about it.

There is going to be plenty of time for you to learn how to work in a firm and what you need to know to build a building and to find out whether a large firm or a small firm is for you, or if architecture, construction, or out of the industry all together, but there is plenty of time for that. I would suggest that in the next year is about you, because unless you find yourself in a really unique situation, its the last time you get to do that. So once you’re out of school its not going to be so much about you anymore, so I would suggest to completely immerse yourself in finding who you are creatively and not limit yourself to the constraints that you’ll live with for the rest of your career.

One of the big struggles is to deal with is while were here were thrown into the reality, and its super refreshing with the mindset and perspective, and now were sort of confused about the perspective for fifth year, but now we see it should be more about us.

I think so, and you should select advisors that support that.

For me, you see the real world and the work you’ll do, but that also encourages you to do the things you won’t be able to do it rather than wish you had done it before or hope for the chance to do it later.

Yeah, and you’re in a work environment that allows you do to that. Ans there are always advisors that think you should know how to build a building and who want you to learn the profession, but honestly when you graduate and go to a firm, you won’t be given a lot of responsibility and will be given a lot of basic tasks to do and it will be years before you even get into the project management aspect. you’ll gradually pick up technical expertise and how people work in an office, and eventually you’ll learn how the business is run, so trying to learn that now is a little premature. and you don’t need to be encumbered by that, I think you should come out of school strongest creative person you can be. People who consider hiring your will probably want

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INTERVIEW

XUAN FU MANAGING PARTNER | SOM 4.3.15 BACKGROUND In 1994, Fu started her SOM career as a technical coordinator before assuming the position of a project manager in 2004. As an expert in the Asian market, she has worked on a range of international projects including master plans, commercial buildings, mixed-use developments, retail, hospitality, and convention and exhibition center projects. Fu has broad experience in design, technology, and management, with a particular focus on projects that have complex programmatic and technological requirements. As a managing partner, Fu directs the architects and engineers to interpret the program, vision, and goals that the client sets forth.

Fu promotes SOM’s highly regarded reputation of sustainable design in architecture and planning. She believes that architects have a social, environmental, and economic responsibility to sustainable design. Focusing on these responsibilities allows her to pursue design opportunities available to the designer, developer, and client, which increase the value of a project.

DISCUSSION The first question that we have, we wanted to know how you got to be where you are today here at SOM, what have you done to prove and establish yourself as a leader in the design world and SOM? I actually, grew up in China, in Beijing, I did my bachelor degree in China and I came over here in 1989 for graduate school at Ball State university. The reason why I wanted to come out was at the time China start to have their door open after 35 years it was very closed. So I just wanted to see what the other side of the world looked like. I was very lucky to get an assistantship at Ball state so thats why I came. At that time none of us could support ourselves unless we got some scholarship. When I was at ball state I was a summer intern at SOM, for one summer. At that time I hardly spoke any English. At that time I Was doing most of the copies and the models, and those types of things. And when I graduated from ball state, the economy was very bad, that was 1990, so I got a job from a very small firm, a 5 person firm for a while until that company didn’t have jobs anymore. And then I went to VOA and did interior design for about 2 years. And since SOM got the project in shanghai, the Jin Mao tower, and they were looking for Chinese speaking architect. I was very lucky to get selected and they got me back a job. Since then, I have worked here for 21 years, and I have to say I was very lucky. What SOM has offered me is great experience and a lot of guidance.

And I had worked with a lot of senior architects along the way and every single staff they guide you through and they really taught me, not only to be a good architect, but also to be a good person as well. Its a great training ground, and also what SOM had offered me is, I believe is opportunity. They have build platform for. You see people from all over the world, not only

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from one nation. This is almost like the United Nations if you really look at it. And you are able to understand different culture and also different way to look at things, so we have projects all over the world as well and because of that SOM had been a lot of places in the world and that had opened up a lot of view as architects and make you open minded.., and we have done a lot international competitions as well, and through the competitions especially when you go in the final presentation and you hear other peoples work, suddenly you realize how great everyone can look at one thing in different perspective, and thats what SOM had offered me. And talking about leadership, I have to say, I personally believe I was very lucky. I have been in the right place in the right time with the right people. As I said I had so many of those senior architects had trained me all along but also because china market has grown quite a lot and I was able to help in a lot of ways, not only marketing it, but also based on the culture background I have and the network I have. to be able to help the firm to understand that market and developing that market in general, but also I did a job in Russia, I did a lot of projects here too as an architect. If I had any suggestion, I believe in any work you do, every day, theres nothing big, nothing small, everything gets to your desk, you do the best out of it. And also don’t wait for other people to tell you what to do, you always go out to offer what your opinions and tools for different options you never ask a question, “what am I going to do” you always say, ok I did this, this, and this. … I believe that’s what I had learned the most, because no one own you to teach you anything, but you can always grab something out of it by going and offer what you can do.

Helping the others to help you. Its work was not only for helping internally, but also externally.

You mentioned about coming from China and I read that you said before

that you had planned to go back to China originally to help the people. Is that something you are still interested in or do you feel you are doing that service here?

I feel I am doing that service here, even more. Not only helping in china, but also actually is you building a bridge, you just build a bridge. To be able to have the culture and everything change.

One of the things that were most curious, because SOM does a lot of international work, how is it possible that you are really in touch with the local culture, despite the distance?

SOM has all those people from all over the world, so in each of our offices, we have employees who understand the culture, but also has been educated in united states as well, so they have both experiences and they are trying to not protect one or take advantage of the other. What we try to do is to try to bring the best out of it for both, so it has to be in general, so everything you do had to be mutually beneficial, it cannot be one or the other, thats the only way you can last longer.

Is there anything about the structure of SOM that you would change if you could?

No, because SOM is very different than most other firms. I believe, in todays world, theres something so, you have to look at things at a much larger scale, which is our city planning group and all the other.. urban planning and from the city planning point of view and we even do the great lakes, so we cross countries and try to do all those things. At the same time, after that, thats the vision you give, and for the next 20, 30, 50 years and then each of the parcels, when you start developing, like what we have done in canary wharf, it has been almost 30 years already and start from 0 and you see this.

Today on my desk, I have another project coming in and they are interested in developing a parcel. So you are giving a service from timing distance, but also how big how large the scale needs to be. At the same time, when you go into each independent building or site, you really need to understand, not from an architectural perspective, but also engineering perspective, what is the best for it. and for energy and the new technology. So you have to have new innovation in each one of them, to push them and the industry so they get better and better. And that’s what is a full environmental issue.

You can be from large scale, city and country scale, but also each of the buildings, and even in the interior, even the air quality, comfortable for the people, so you have to take care of all perspectives. That’s what SOM has. We have urban planning, architecture, structure, MEP, interior design, and also our black box. So we do a lot of research for new materials, new systems, all that. And that giving us much larger scale to really understand what needs to be done so to your question, a lot of other firms, they practice only architecture, only interior, only something. I believe SOM can offer differently and I like the way we offer it.

Do you find Canary Wharf more as a micro city within the boundaries of London or as an extension. When I was there it seemed like I was in downtown London and I take the tube to canary wharf and it felt like it was its own micro city, it was very corporate and different.

It was very interesting, I had a discussion at lunch with Jeff about a new Chinese client who was interested in a particular parcel. So he was explaining to me the history of the developing of London, central London.

The government, the banking, and all that. How all the rich people were living on one side and you know, London used to rule the whole world by shipping, and how that particular site was for the labor workers for the shipping. and then they had wanted to make a change, so they moved all the backing outside. so they … and they made a very special financial zone, so they enjoy a certain kind of tax benefit, in order to develop in that area, because London wanted to still be the financial center of the world and then in the 1980s because of theres all the financial company on … and there are certain ways they had to trade, so in other areas, they were not able to use old buildings to turn into those kind of floor plans. So the facility is not existing there, they had to develop. I believe more as an extension, you will see London in general, its developing further and further. …Ken Jackson One of the other questions, we’ve been surrounded in the work area who are very close to what we think is the typical architecture, were working on parts of the project. How would you say your position now differs from the different jobs that have led you to this position. I came in as a D level architect and I worked on a lot of different jobs, but what SOM has offered. I was able to start from Chinese project, then we work on project in manilla, ?plasarachia.. then we were working on project here, in London, in Russia, and Korea. So with all the experience, you work with very different teams, where you learn, and on each jobs because SOM project is so large, so not one person can learn everything in one. Maybe you work on the basement on one job, the site plan of another, a core, or exterior walls. So those things you really need to be patient doing things right and every day in order to gain that knowledge. And with the knowledge, I also had been a technical coordinator for a while, which is the architecture who is more in charge of technical, so you not only coordinate with your own structural, engineering, mep, and all that, but also you also work the local design institute of the country your work with, and also with the client and also with all the consultants, like lighting, vertical transportation, landscape. At SOM I grew up from the very bottom, but what has given to me, I was brought up with perspective, I have touched on everything a little bit. And that’s the benefit of it and I was very grateful for that.

With all these different factors playing, I saw on the website, the specialization on tall buildings, I was wondering what the most surprising obstacle when it comes to organizing something of that scale.

In all the work we do, its teamwork. With SOM over the years, we’ve done

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INTERVIEW XUAN FU so many high rises and large-scale mix use buildings so there a certain kind of system internally we were developing over years. and fit in the market because the market changes. Also internally trying to visualize it and developing that way. But also for large scale, its actually very interesting, its a process, but also back to your question, I was talking to you like I start from the bottom all the way and after that I did some marketing as well and them I started on this project management, and then the more you do that, the more you get involved with more people. Before you would only work internally, you can always find an answer,a dn when suddenly when you open yourself up to the client group, to the local design institute, and even to the local government and to a lot of other things, suddenly you can start understanding everyone has a different perspective, but you had to figure out a way to net everyones goals together and find a common goal, and then push towards that direction, and only then can you be successful. not only your team, almost everything affect you. you had to sense it and lead and push in one direction. So thats what the difference is between my first job and today.

You touched on growing up with the firm and learning from so many areasare there certain things that you remember being young and having your up bringing or your personal experience while growing up that sticks with you not only in design but in the way you communicate with others or something you specifically do in the work field?

No, because you have to learn all those things and then they become one in you, its not like one specific way you just grab that and then you become something, no I don’t think so. I think you really need to, as I said from the beginning, do your best on every single work you get on your table I have a question regarding the word ‘sustainability” I know thats one of those words that architecture firms like to throw around, its a real buzzword these days. I want to know what your view is on it, what it means to you and how thats projected in the firm I think about sustainability as a firm in this office we have a long history of work for just. If you really look at what that did for that particular country, it is very important. What we had done is we did the tent, because for Mecca each year, so many people go through that particular airport and theres no way you can air condition the whole area for it and at the same time because the religion, people had to have certain space, quiet space to clean themselves, quiet space to meditate or to pray before they get on the airplane. And thats why I’m telling you the cultural respect that the firm can offer to the client and also what we can learn from the client is amazing.

So with that, what we did is first of all, the design is a tent. And second, the structure group went out with the factory to develop what kind of fabrication they had to get the tent also in the same time because its very hot, its in the desert, so the air coming in gets sucked up so all the air gets sucked out so we have not only shade but also we get natural ventilation for the whole thing, thirty years later still. So if you ask if thats a new word for SOM, “Sustainability” never was- it has always been that way. So todays goal is not only working our site, we start with urban planning. You saw what we tried to do for the great lake. We are doing a lot of similar things for other countries as well. Its supposed to your blood, so in each of us are supposed to carry it through and thats what were doing and also you have the LEED

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system rating and also in each country they have different rating but also we have our own goal which is much stronger than average. We really want to save energy and we really want to have water saving as well and how truly we can do for the environment, especially now we are working a lot of projects in China with air pollution, how we can improve indoor air quality but thats not for today. Today because they need it we are going it, how about 20 years form now, what do we do. so we are working with universities and research groups, those kind of issues, new materials and in order to helping those research we use it right away. because of the job we’re pushing on certain research as well. so thats kind of like in and out, thats made something a little different than the other. [zero idea what this sentence means @20:20] I know that on the internet it lists you as being a managing partner here. so you talk a lot with all the studios and different directors and coordinators here and you communicate with the clients saying to them, then that translate to design, right? so theres a lot of different tiers of communication that something has to go through to get made?

Not really. Actually in my goal what we do. We don’t sell management, we sell design. so actually in our way we try to push our design and technical coordinators and design team in front of the client so all directly communicate.

It’s not like I go meet with the client and come back and tell them what the client said, the designers always on the site with us. if I have a meeting with the client online,e they are online. They are the epicenter. What I do during the time where we have the meeting if one side does not understand the intention of the other part wanted, I’m going in to help, to let them clearly understand what each one’s goal is and what each one’s idea is so they can find a common end goal. What my goal is to have our designers to express their design idea as strongly and as much that they can and also understand what the construction men meant and what the client meant and the limit of the market and how to bring the two together to help our client pushing them to highest level they could on each project. It’s a design team.

So you’re kind of the mediator?

Generally thats the case and I will help to communicate about time and deliverables, schedules, meeting times, but they host the meeting.

How has the profession of architecture changed? I know you’ve probably had many different experiences with it since you came out of college but how has it progressed since then?

X- maybe because of the computerization of it, so its much easier for us to communicate to the client. Before we had to do renderings and now I see the clients developing much faster and they can see things in much more realistic way because of computer modeling so they can make a decision and work with you in a much closer way. And you don’t need to do all the drawings and ship it out and two days later make a call. Now things happen immediately.

Do you think thats possibly caused this flattened hierarchy that you’ve been discussing, how you can rapidly access and spread information. do you think that affects how SOM is structured nowadays?

In a way, yes. but also at the same time you understand that if you can get the client and you on the same table in the first minute you can get the best for your team. Its more efficient for working at SOM. And also you will be able to use the numbers and graphics to show them what the new technology benefit will be so you are really helping push them to the cutting edge Do you see new opportunities arising as technology progresses, with that dynamic changing even further?

Yes, because before we had to be online with set of drawings online and talking to them on the phone. Now we instantly have online meetings so each site can present and sketch and also make decision off it right away.

While talking about representation, we know that when talking to architects, there are certain drawings that make more sense, and other drawings that make more sense to clients. Seeing it from both sides, whats the most difficult thing when trying to represent? We’re heavily producing renderings and we aren’t really sure at what point is it appropriate to bing in finished looks and what clients will understand.

It depends on what you want to get out of that meeting, if its just the initial design phase you don’t want to get them finished look that they will criticize.

Because the whole design process is you feel the market, you understand the program, but also you try to understand the client need and you need to bring them along. if you don’t bring them along they cannot make a decision for you. Now at what stage of the design, then you will know how complete your story needs to be or your graphic will be. Especially because you don’t want to force it too fast. you need to get them into it, its work to get their process I have a question that is somewhat mundane but has some possibilities just because I’m not fully aware of the licensing process. I see that you’re licensed in both Wisconsin and New York, and I’m wondering there’s a reason for those two specific states, and if SOM has some kind of benefit by your licenses.

IDP training internally. And also we are trying to help the young architect to be able to be able to get other experience. If you need credit in certain fields, we try to help them get that experience. As I said for myself, I came in as a D-level (?) but I work on a different part of the building so by the end so you will be able to be a complete architecture student. You will know how to take something from zero to the final completion of construction. and second, after you get licensed, we have a lot of different programs where we bring people in for a lot of different lectures, but internally we have a lot of training lectures. the internal lectures have been put together by those people. If you have a special kind of interest that you want to do you can always ask about, we always have special interest groups of people developing their program and presenting it to you. So those are the counting education, and certainly we have many manufacturers come in as well. but also we participate very actively on all the AIA, all the competitions and programs.

Is there any project in particular that you remember that throughout your lifetime of work that you remember as changing you or the way you thought about design?

No, there was no one project. It was collective As young architects now and seeing how you’ve grown from all your experiences, is there any advice you could give us for something you did and you’re really glad you did, or something we should maybe reconsider because it isn’t something that is as obvious?

I believe that you can learn something from everyone you meet, not only one person. Not someone above you or below you. no one is above or below you, we are all equal in that way. and also at the same time if any opportunity comes to you, you should work on it. don’t feel this is too small, this ia nothing. You may learn something big for your tomorrow. And anything is like you’re building yourself as an architect. So every single block will work for you in the future.

TAKEAWAY ....

Well a professional architect in general does not only need to be educated but go through the licensing process to prove the client can trust you. Like if you are a doctor you have to have your license too. not only that but SOM requires for level above associate, everyone must be licensed. And SOM as an LLP is registered in New York so all of us had to register there.

I started the exam in Wisconsin because I was completing my IDP but also I got my bachelor degree in China and my Masters at Ball State. But Ball State Masters is apparently not registered, so they had to evaluate my old school experience. You will check in the future, I will do a lot more states. As principals we are responsible for signing the drawings, so therefore the more states we have the more we can cover.

I know part of the licensing is that architects gain research or some sort of further education beyond office work, so does SOM encourage or promote their own program?

First of all, before you qualify for your license, you have to do the IDP. We have

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INTERVIEW

LUIS MONTERRUBIO COORDINATING PLANNER | CHICAGO PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 4.8.15 BACKGROUND Luis Manuel is an architect and urban planner; he was born in Mexico City in 1976. In 2001, he obtained a bachelor degree in Architecture from Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico City. His passion for cities motivated him to obtain in 2007 a Master degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. More recently in 2009 he became a LEED Accredited Professional from United States Green Building Council. Since 2001 he has worked with the City of Chicago Department of Planning focusing primarily on community and neighborhood planning projects, his previous work also includes managing the development process of commercial and residential projects from conception to execution. Through this position Mr. Monterrubio has had the opportunity to work directly with the decision-making processes that shape the economic and sustainable development policy of the Chicago.

DISCUSSION Chicago Plan Committee meeting on a Thursday of the month -architects and developers Multiple neighborhoods in Chicago. The reality is that neighborhood boundaries change a lot based off of real estate.

-The best reference to know what neighborhood you are in is based on residence. Look at all of the plans, recommendations and manage expectations.

-lost jobs in 2000-2010- about 60,000 jobs -example: same type of technical pen. there’s a multiplier effect that produces more jobs weather it’s distribution or sales.

Also lost population during that time that triggered from the loss due to jobs, yes probably most. Also the crime rose in certain locations.

12 Zoning categories in Chicago PMD - Planning Manufacturing District.

Architects have a client - it’s important to understand the context of a city,

Every area of the city has a variety of issues. Look at it as a garden.

The combination of different species has to co-exist and its is the job to address all of the different parts Need residence, education, low crime rates, good infrastructure and affordable housing. Need to care about its site and intersection is important.

Maps give guidelines of the context.

-essential tool - job as architects -will last more than hopefully a week, have to care about intersections Chicago has 50 wards - physical representation of the area.

Is it rentable space, is it survivable?

-what is the most important, here vs. there, what is the competition -to capture most traffic 26 industrial corridors in Chicago Industrial is important

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Chicago has diversified economy unlike Detroit example warehouse – moved out from downtown Chicago, now other retailers have to go out to farther areas When move into a new district, and it’s not trendy- have other guys with dead carcasses; they need to have that activity further.

NIMBY Not in my back yard The chocolate smell – on the intersection of Kinzie and Milwaukee -people from apartments start complaining -EPA involved -they should have looked at the context and understand the conditions Everything is a built environment - don’t have the luxury to have 300 acres of open land It is important to value the relationships between program, based off land

use, scale and everything that can make it sustainable Talked to the Calatrava project – he came here to do the presentation of the Spire tower -worked with him to understand every aspect -tall building, but it needs to give back to the park, needs to be a set back Not giving Calatrava a blank slate do anything -example Valencia- someone has to pay for that. Maintaince is 2-3 times more than expected- unacceptable in Chicago.

Can’t let your architect or artist just go free.

Have to work with everyone - may not like it but you have to.

Frank Ghery entrance builds up snow and drops it -Going into a lawsuit because of that issue

population without the need to expand more -Creating smart ways of using the existing resources without wasting it, without hurting the local population -Making decisions to help our projects last longer - not a cost that we have right now -Chicago spends 70% of carbon emissions on the building maintenance/ construction because of weather.

People want mansions on big hills -architect for parents created beautiful home with different levels, but the land was flat.

-dad has an issue with walking -Make it sustainable- why design something that isn’t helping the customer?

Sustainability fits more than one description in my opinion.

It is important to keep your design perspective in place Keep connection with the final user Keep connection with other things that will not change like climate that continues to be an issue, What led you here, your education?

Thesis was done CSX site was the largest vacant space in the city.

In Mexico, part of a team of 10 students Sarted a thesis in love with Calatrava - first project was a crazy structure -had 3 professors that said I was crazy, so I spent 3 months defending - didnt do a whole year Then planned to do an urban project in the city of Chicago - came to present -offered internship - some with GREC - Luis here -Was suppose to be a 3-year internship, 14 years later...

What do you think is the immediate problems of Chicago?

There are different needs in the city -not one formula that applies to all -don’t have a high concentration of parks, but the parks we do have need to be reprogrammed -rail project, an existing train track people run on it for the 3 mile stretch -about the size of street- will give users to move from the road Using the things that we have and making them more efficient Need more jobs in infrastructure, construction, but those are temporary jobs -how do you make those last for the long term -alternatives in different locations When you look at an area, what factors give an area reason for development?

Important to continue learning and doing the things you like because will be spending your time -Was entirely once all architecture, and transitioned into urbanism and planning -Had to care about communities, elected officials, etc.

-hunger for knowledge -masters in urban planning at UIC, and 2 years later got an understanding of architectural and master planning

Right now there are plans, so you can’t redevelop areas completely -Wicker Park has a lot of gentrification - HAS TO resolve a problem, it has to identify the issue, like affordable housing, they still want to stay here but the area is expensive.

-start collaborating with other disciplines- attorneys, developers, community leaders - networking has definitely increased 200% -Still working on license in architecture -Became a LEED AP

TAKEAWAY

What does sustainability mean to you?

Had a great experience with the Chicago Sustainability Industry Most sustainable industry is the one that is already here -Already has existing jobs that has the resources to have for the local

How do you keep the community informed about what’s happening or what will happen if theres a master plan?

-present 2-3 times a year -people will see what is invested in the area

A project is more than itself and the site it sits on. It is even more than the building you envision for the time you build it. A building must inform the entire neighborhood and city on various scales for time to come. If there are issues that arise, it is important not to become so attached to the project so that it cannot change. It is something that should change and in response to the concerns of the people, the requirements of the city, and the potential opportunities.

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BRIAN LEE DESIGN PARTNER | SOM 4.10.15 BACKGROUND Brian Lee believes that architecture starts with solving our client’s genuine needs, but also must strive to achieve inspirational results that transcend expectations. A fundamental question that guides his work is how a building’s aesthetics, program, and tectonics can provide meaning to those who live and work in its spaces. His hands-on design approach is focused on achieving full integration of the natural and built environment through the most innovative design forms, materials, and construction technologies.

Using these simple and essential principles, Lee has designed landmark structures of lasting value and impact around the globe. Directing this international practice — including projects in East and Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East — has honed his collaborative and design leadership skills.

Lee’s internationally published and award-winning designs include the China World Trade Center in Beijing; Poly International Plaza in Guangzhou, China; the University of California San Diego Telemedicine Education Building; and the Kia Motors America, Inc. Research and Development Project and Design Center in Irvine, California.

DISCUSSION What made you choose architecture? What’s your background? Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the central valley of Sacramento, California. My father was an architect. I’m second generation Chinese, so my grandmother and grandfather immigrated from China. They were farmers. There were lots of farmers during the Depression. Worked in a meat market grocery store downtown. My father was the first one to go to college. Really quite admirable in that generation – they were really the ones that made significant advances in terms of education and quality of life. I actually quite admired his experience, as well as my grandfather’s experience. Actually, I was surprised by this question by somebody else at another school. And I wrote to her, it was about being in that environment. It was a sort of an advantage. I saw the drafting tables in the basement, because he was moonlighting at the time. So people would be coming over later at night and I would see them as a kid. He later had his own office, so I would go there because my mom was also the secretary office manager. And she also did drafting. She did geological surveying for the federal government. The hand drawn, topographic, beautiful maps you see. I would be washing cars, trimming the hedges, gardening in front of the office, sweeping the front steps of the office. Then I’d come in and run the print machine. The earlier ones were wet. You had to hang them up to dry off. It feels like Henry Ford Model T period, to even just coloring drawings. It was even before a product you might not even know – Zipatone. It used to be big sheets you would cut out to lay down patterns, textures, and tones.

It’s like plastic that you had to put down. Before that you had to hand color.

Like if you wanted to shade or tone for a parking lot or a landscape feature,

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you would draw on the back of the drawing with a blue pencil. It took forever! So those kinds of things in being in the environment. But the most interesting thing for me was just hanging around people that were connected to building – connected to architecture and engineering. I wouldn’t just go there, then get in the car and go to baseball or something. It didn’t seem like “work” – these aspects of architecture, engineering, and design. Most notable was when we went out to San Francisco, and he’d visit old professors and old classmates. When you crossed the bridge, it was like going to this magical city. Then going to have lunch with old classmates from these firms on top of this old time, century restaurant. It was this whole kind of thing where you’d see big scale drawings. Full scale drawings of a wall section, big models, and then you would see the buildings. That was inspiring. When I did apply to college, actually, I applied and put down “Math” for a major. It still has an undergraduate major in architecture. It’s accredited, but it’s not a professional degree. And then those lecture halls! Sitting with 500 other kids for math and physics classes, it’s like, “Ugh, this isn’t too fun.” So I switched into architecture. That was the biggest influence personally.

Did you work through college with your father?

No I didn’t, because you know, it’s hard to work for your dad. But I did pick up a number of odd jobs. Worked for structural engineering department in Berkeley. Did a lot of diagrams and drawings for them. Interestingly enough my first jobs were with TY Lin, very famous engineer. I was just doing drafting. Rebars and ties. They didn’t have me calculating anything, because I don’t know about that kind of thing at the time. But just as a draftsman, supporting architects and engineers. That was for 2 summers.

Where did you go after college?

I went to Berkeley for undergraduate, and right after Berkeley I went to Harvard GSD for graduate school. I did two years there. It was a 2.5 or 3 year program, but they gave me advanced standing. So it was a 4 year, plus a 2 year.

From there, how did you find yourself at SOM? Well 2 summers at TY Lin, and then I spent 2 summers at SOM. You have a network of guys and gals you know. If someone couldn’t do one summer, and they knew of a job, they’d say, “Hey you might wanna check these guys out.” I got a part time during the year, helping out with some drawings at SOM in San Francisco. And you develop relationships so – I worked there one summer, while I was at grad school. And when I finished grad school, I was intending on going to New York. And at that time you know, there’s different architects you admire and you’d go work for them. So I applied to I.M. Pei’s office, Richard Meier’s office, there was a guy named Charles Gwathmey.

Gwathmey-Segull. That was kind of interesting. I had done some drawings for him when I was at Harvard. Measuring up a building and documenting, they were going to do some renovations. Then a firm called Richard Giurgola. That was an interesting firm for me. It was less stylistically set than Richard Meier’s practice and I.M. Pei’s practice. It was a little bit more about humanism in architecture that I appreciated. It was more of a Venturi and Louis Kahn school. So I was accepted at I.M. Pei’s office and Richard Giurgola’s office. I told them that I could go to start work in December, because I was going to go to Sacramento for the summer. So Gwathmey says, “Once you go back, you never go back to New York, so forget it.” I was going to take a position at I.M. Pei’s office, but I ended up going back to Sacramento because of a girlfriend, and a project. My dad had a small housing project. And he said that it would be good experience. I ended up doing it for a year. So I didn’t go back to New York. Things could have been different, but it was one of those things – a project that I could do by myself. He was just a one-man office at that time.

It was fun. It was 50 units of student housing in a law school in Sacramento.

And you get to do everything. Meet the clients, go down and get the permits, bid the thing out, the whole kit and kaboodle. I got licensed, because it’s good experience to get licensed that way. I developed an ulcer. You know it’s stressful. You’ve got to do everything. You say, “I want to do this. I want to do this.” You have people saying, “No, you can’t do that.” Either it costs too much, or you can’t build it, or we don’t like it. So it’s an interesting experience to learn about the hard-knocks of the real world. So at the end of that year, it was under construction. I got a call from SOM, again, because they knew I was back on the west coast and wanted to know if I would come out to the San Francisco office. So at that time I was in CA phase, out on job sites, wondering if I would go back to New York. Meanwhile my girlfriend is still in the area. So it worked out to say, “Ok, let’s try out this SOM thing in San Francisco.” Prior SOM experience was with the urban design group. Planning work, large scale projects. But they said to come back to the architecture department. And the rest is history! I started in 1979 so, 36 years later.

You mentioned that you liked working on a project because of the humanistic aspect of it. And I saw something that you mentioned before in regards to Churchill’s quote, “We shape our buildings, therefore they shape us.” You were talking about the human scale, and large buildings versus small buildings.

So I was wondering if you have more experiences or thoughts about that.

Interesting question. I haven’t put this in words or writing. But it’s interesting how architects can mature. They’re usually filled with vigor early on.

You go out and there’s a certain ambition. You’re very intent on trying to accomplish things. I was lucky because I had some interesting professors at school. They were all very strong architects. The strongest was Kallmann – Kallmann McKinnell. They were architects that did the Boston City Hall.

Very much about the tectonics of architecture. But at that time also, there were people coming into the school that were very strong. Richard Meier was teaching there, Gwathmey was there, Maki came, Michael Graves was there when he was doing late-modernism, cubist architecture. They were all architects that had a definite point of view. Eisenman came in to talk. I felt that from a point of view of having skills at form making, understanding volume, surface, the formal aspects of architecture, that I had certain abilities in that. I had remembered that from my background at Berkeley, there were people teaching there at that time were like Christopher Alexander, and a whole group of people that believed in the social and behavioral aspects of architecture and how it related to people. So there’s a little bit of that dichotomy. So me coming from Berkeley, which was more of a populist culture, then going to Harvard, where they would tell you how to express a column, or how to cut a window in a wall, how to make a joint. I said, “Okay, this is kind of fun.” I was learning something that I thought was really interested in, that I didn’t necessarily get at Berkeley. Then when I started to work at SOM, I had somebody named Chuck Bassett, who took me under his wing. He was an architect who I thought was very skilled. His dad was an architect in the Midwest, did very sensitive work. He grew up with the ability to draw, think about how to craft things, and went to go see Eero Saarinen. Eero Saarinen’s work was much less dogmatic in approaching the problem, and finding an architectural solution to address that problem. So when you look at his work it’s very, very different, whether it’s TWA Terminal or Dulles Airport. Chuck had worked with him on the chapel at MIT – little brick building. To the GM Center. All of these different buildings. So that same philosophy in thinking about appropriateness, and not being so uptight about your own ideology, that allowed you to be a lot more free about thinking about architecture.

Also art, history, how people use space and social influences. I thought that was interesting because it didn’t mean you were without a philosophy, but to me it meant that you are more whole as a person. And when you’re more whole as a person, you’re better as an architect. And you have to look at a lot of other architects that are so tied up in their stylistic issues, that it’s hard for them to do other things. You could name them now. You know a building by somebody. If a building looks like that, you know who that person is.

I think that in the end, and this is not going to be postmodernist, I’m not just trying to say we just want architecture that is accessible and appeals

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INTERVIEW BRIAN LEE to people, like what Michael Graves did. But it’s trying to take the histories of what architecture meant to people, and how does it fit into our human condition. That to me is kind of interesting. It means that it’s thinking about, from the very beginning, how do people relate to spaces, what do they feel.

What are the emotions? Inspirational, depressing, contemplative, activating, stimulating. How do you get these qualities in architecture? To me, that kind of was a worthy pursuit, to say I am confident as a form maker. Let’s see if we can’t make architecture that provides meaning and feeling. I was lucky to visit some of the things that Peter Zumthor is doing. It’s quite beautiful.

There’s a similar rigor to the work, and he’s after certain qualities of space, light, and sound. We had to go to Basel. We went a weekend early before a client meeting. We traveled around Zurich and went to Basel. Luckily there was the Art Basel that weekend and that was incredible. We saw the church (St. Benedict Chapel), we saw the baths at Vals, we saw an interesting little senior housing project that I saw was quite clever. It was a linear building, big piece of glass, and balcony. It was quite simple. Collective senior housing.

It was single loaded and had a very wide quarter to those units. In that quarter, people starting to populate it with stuff inside the unit that they brought outside. There was a grandfather clock, chairs with doilies on them, pots and plants. So it was a way to think about how collective housing and family housing could be highly personalized and less institutionalized.

Especially for seniors that want to have that ability to relate to each other in later years of life, that they’re not isolated but they feel like part of the larger community. So to me, those kind of qualities were quite interesting, like when you go to visit the little church (St. Benedict Chapel). Have you been? I thought it was a little disappointing. The inside, from point of view with just the painted surface of the plywood. I thought that was much more naturalistic. But everything else was incredible. The vestibule that leads you in and the kind of qualities of that stuff. And it very much reminded me of a sensitivity that I wish we could practice, that Scarpa does. You know his work? That thing works so well in the landscape. And the materials and how the light comes in. It didn’t start with a stylistic issue, but it started with an idea how to develop a place in a broad sense that is inspirational. It has meaning, it speaks to people. And when you talk about Scarpa stuff, have you seen the cemetery? Incredible. I was lucky to go there with my life.

She’s very tolerant. She likes architecture and design. But she’s like, “Really?

A cemetery?” We spent like 3 hours there. A whole afternoon because it was so beautiful. So I think to me, how do you find a way to develop an architecture? Yes you have to solve problems, it’s about performance, it’s about a certain urbanism. But getting back to your thing, an architecture of scale, even in large jobs, how do you find ways to continue to think about people? They’re normally 6 feet tall. How do they move through the space and what do they feel like? We talked about this the other day about the issue of panoramic windows. Can you still get this quality of experience of being in the sky without panoramic windows? Because you know, energy issues are such that you want more solids. You can get it, if you’ve got a gigantic piece of glass that’s people sized. So a 10 by 10 piece of glass with solids on either side of it, you would still have that quality of expansiveness, of the sky and of the light, without it being 60 feet of glass.

You’re talking a little bit about the material, the scale, the form, and the tectonics of it. You said before that the material finish cost and the craft of the construction can make or break the project. So how does that factor in to working with this, and how do you work with other countries where you

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don’t know the craftsmanship of things? With projects you can control the form and the shape of it, but the craftsmanship you put in someone else’s hands. How do you deal with that?

It’s a constant struggle for us. Especially when we don’t get to do the full documentation of the project, or take the project all the way to the final results. You mentioned abroad. Where we have that problem. Although we have some fairly good buildings, compared to the rest of the best buildings in the world, have been built in China. But I can’t even get a little library here, to detail to the same extent that we’d like to do it China. Because, these guys don’t get it, something costs too much money, and now they’re not gonna do it, and why aren’t you gonna do it? Oh we do it for them, oh maybe we could do that, and then a week later decided we can’t. You know it’s just constant small battles to win the war. So I do that that, if you tried to describe the best buildings in the world, it does have to do with how things go together in the end. Ours is a visual and experiential profession. So when you look at a corner, at an intersection, at a surface of a wall, even at a low end material – stucco. What’s the quality of that surface? Does it have ugly, stupid, mundane expansion joints that look like they are the least common denominator or are they carefully hidden? I think that you can do buildings out of very ordinary materials. If done properly, cleanly, then it’s quality that you think you’ve experienced great architecture. There’s an architect in the Bay area that my dad studied under. He’s kind of famous. His name is William Wurster. The school at Berkeley was named after him – Wurster Hall. And he was an architect that came from the east coast, but adopted a Bay area regionalism. And he did a lot of houses. His whole thing was how to simplify details. Yet, when you looked at them, they were probably the most complicated details imaginable, but it was all about reduction. So that it didn’t have a big lap trim over a window and the siding, but it was all carefully seamless and crafted like cabinet work. So sometimes the things that look the most simple, are the hardest to do. But you can do it! It’s just a matter of sitting down and sweating the details.

Could you speak about your view about the social and environmental and economic responsibility of architecture in sustainable design? Or to narrow down the question, what does sustainable design mean to you?

Well maybe they are all related, so backing up and relating sustainable design to social responsibility, and it does affect the economy in terms of what you do and what you will save later on. I think it gets back to the issues of not only what your feelings about your responsibilities as an architect, in terms of whether you’re doing the right thing. But also how do you more importantly, not just let it be sloganeering, or buzzwords. Not empty, sort of goals. But how do you really get it done? And because we’re a service organization, people pay us to do work for them. And automatically, in that trade, you tend to feel that you lose the ability to drive the agenda. But I think that what you have to do, and this is where the best designers in the world are able to turn that agenda around, and listen to what someone’s asking you to do. And find ways that it first addresses the greater societal concerns, right? Because that’s what we really want to do. That’s what most designers what they believe they can do in life. How it then intersects with the client’s concerns. Actually I think Saarinen did a Venn diagram of society intersecting with clients’ concerns with architectural concerns, or art. That is the way you have to go about it. That you’re constantly being tugged and

pulled. Yeah you’re paying me to do this, but I am presenting to you a better way to do it, or supporting your desires that is adding more value in the end or makes you feel good as a person or as a company, or it’s going to be a benefit to your users, tenants, students, or whoever. It’s a tough question, because we’re all going to say, “Yes, absolutely we have to be responsive.” To not only society, but be conscious of social issues of our time. You have to look at the news and see what’s happening today. Would you do a prison if you had your choice? Why? They don’t get good space. Those spaces are not nice spaces. You know, the AIA is having its own debate right now, of whether or not the profession will or will not support societies’ views on incarceration and punishment. And because it’s so tied into specific ideas about isolation and punishment, that we shouldn’t be a part of that. Yet other people in the AIA, believe yes, maybe we could actually help. Maybe we can come up with different models in terms of how to deal with the penal system that are more human and actually improve the human condition. So where do you fall? My ideology says either, I will not do that, or do you fall in the camp as a pragmatist where you say, “Well I can make a better place.” These are significant issues that designers address. Like this new Apple watch that just came out. Does that improve the human condition? We don’t know yet, right?

Maybe, because it’s all about this incremental interface between technology and people. That’s what they’re talking about. It’s not a watch, it’s really the constant development of technology where you control the technology, not let the technology control you. But where’s the fit in the grand scheme of things in terms of, you know, a cure for cancer? I think that there’s kinds of questions every day that you have to ask about what you’re doing. Is it the right thing to do? Can you make it better? I ask it every day myself – “Are we providing any innovation?” Just straight off. Is there something about this project where I’d be able to tell a story? Something that solved a problem?

Something that provided a benefit to society? And that benefit to society could be physical, psychological, it could be about sustainability, about the environment, conservation. So when you ask that question, they kind of all fit together. But you have to do that, because otherwise, as a designer, you’re kind of out there as a hired tool. Sometimes you get trapped because the way expectations and the way things work in the world, especially the business world. So that’s why I say you have to be constantly questioning and remind yourself to do the right thing.

We had a professor over fall travel. He asked us all, “What is the role of the architect?” Some answered, the rest were blank faces. But he said, “The role of the architect, is to enrich human lives.” You were talking about your answer to the question about the responsibility that we have. How far does that extend? To all human lives? In what ways can we do that?

I think that’s true. It applies at all scales too. I think that one of the most interesting advantages in this office that we have is that we have people that are multi-disciplinary. So I am constantly reminded by some of the work that Phil Enquist does in terms of larger scale issues how it relates to cities and the environment. And how sometimes it’s not a building problem, but it’s actually a city problem or a district problem, or a neighborhood problem, or a country problem. On the other hand, we have people very skilled in interior environments. When you’re designing a building, and then thinking about those interior spaces, how do they really relate to, not just how people feel and how they move through the space, but creating a better workplace.

And that’s a huge topic today. It’s about how the tech world is trying to find

its “magic answer.” Is it all fun playhouse spaces about collaboration and throwing everybody together? I’ve been watching these tech companies.

This guy owns the 1871, which is this start up tech company. He is the owner of it that allows startups to get that space. He’s watched how people works in the space for a couple years now, and he says, “Nobody ever gets any work done in these open office plans. If they really wanted to get work done, they slink off and find a place they can be by themselves in the office, or a cubby hole or a corner. And so it’s kind of interesting to hear that. Because it counters the collaborative open plans, which we have here. I think that getting back to this issue of thinking about responsibilities, it is ultimately about making things better for the human condition. And there’s a broad range of issues that relate to it. If you can argue that a beautiful church was talking about the human condition, and no matter how elaborate the tectonics and the issues of form and surface and light, they were really about inspiring people. And hopefully you can take those same aspects to schools, educational facilities, workplaces, places of healing, and government, in terms of interaction and services for people.

I talked to Phil about philosophy, and he says “Too often, architects look at the buildings as the buildings on a piece of paper with no explanation.” Do you think that we should keep drawing in isolation because we can’t handle all of the information that is given to us at once, so we can get at it a little more clearly, or do you think we should always keep it in it’s surroundings as he suggests?

You guys know the rule right? The rule is that you always look up at one scale, maybe two scales. So you design a building, you look at the block scale and the neighborhood scale, to see how it fits inside the neighborhood, then you look at the city scale, so I think that designers are always trying to find some context for their work so I know that Phil tries to set out an idea for people to react to, I think, or at least hope not, that people aren’t thinking about the context, now what happens though is that often times, the way that we produce architecture and design cities is so fast, and frankly, it’s pretty amazing that we used to have a dedicated amount of time allocated to a project per person, now it’s kind of like half the time, because now in architectural production, you can get drawings out so quickly and just produce 3 dimensional massing and even 3d printing. and so sometimes, frankly, younger, less experienced designers come in, and they are given a task and they do that, and we have to remind them to think at all scales, up, down in order for these things to work.

What questions do we ask ourselves when we’re making buildings? What do you think are the most difficult questions of architecture are and about the profession in general?

Well, I think part of the profession is always about lots of different things. I think that the power of design is not always recognized by clients. Sometimes they (clients) are the authority that are part of the approvals, and so people get in the way in terms of setting goes and briefs and programs that are not as much as they could be, so that’s one thing. You guys may have heard this before, the idea of the master architect, so someone who is very capable of doing design to detail, is something that doesn’t happen, it’s pretty rare, because there are a lot of firms that do the design and they hand their working drawings for others to do the detailing. So splitting up that kind of conception of what the architect does is, is kind of wide spread. We associate

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INTERVIEW BRIAN LEE with architect probably when we’re abroad, we can’t get there on time, but we will very rarely do it in our own count unless we’re in some kind of special circumstances. And the other part is, we believe in a multidisciplinary concept, where an engineer is working very closely with you rather than as an adversary, that is something that happens a lot. Developers believe that engineers should be adversaries? They should say “Hey, watch out, they are going to make some crazy shape so don’t let them do that because if it costs me more money because of that form, I’m going to lose money. etc” So they’ll separate out the engineers and have the engineers report directly to the client, rather than working directly with the architect, so you lose that opportunity to integrate a few things that fully holistic, so that’s one of things of practice that is a little difficult. I think the way the fascination of star architects are branding things, is maybe to be expected but it’s unfortunately for a lot of firms, because there are talented people that don’t get a chance to do work, so you may get the flavor of the month because oh “they have an interiors by (so and so)” because that’s what sells, I’ve heard that from clients here. They didn’t really like the building, but a developer here will say well we don’t really like the style but then we notice that there are too many glass and modern buildings and so go back a little, maybe we like this old kind of aspect to traditional architecture. So they look for these brands that I think denies architects the ability to problem solve and really sticks the architects in a spot, so it becomes a commodity. I think that the profession is not great for the way it trains architects. From the schools and also when you get out of school, part of it, I was on the adversary board for GSD, for a short time you are in school, you’re lucky to have 5 years, some people only have 3 years, to become an architect, and part of it is core, and also they might do collaborative studios, and travel to another place, so the amount of time that you actually have in a studio is actually not that much. The amount of time that you have to take interesting seminars, that deal with design, and also the technical aspects of architecture so I don’t know how much you guys have taken structures, or doing systems, or building performance, then you take that, and if they have even taught you processional practice, management issues, so is it appropriate that you learn those things in school? or do you wait to then have the profession teach you that. Then you get students, hire the best design students, and they usually don’t have the best technical background and so you see how they kind of track up and they kind of veer over to be a technical architects but then you, a lot of firms try to split them, we try not to split them early, we see how people kind of work, but where does that leave room for management?

You’re not going to hire a guy from B group to be a manager of office because he has no idea really about the practice, but then a firm like us has even tried looking at a CFO or CEO from a business practice and it’s a total disaster because they don’t really understand the culture, at least for us design that drives the practice. People come to us because they want to have a well designed building, it’s not that they come to us because we have lower fees or we have good employees that will be your buddies to get coffee or baseball games. So I thin that the impression doesn’t really do a good job of training something that is an intensive experience over a long period of time and maybe it’s fine that people learn through IDP and internship programs and they find their own way, but there is probably a better way to do that, probably a more efficient way to do that.

I’m gonna ask you a question a little more about context, I know Joanna would ask this if she were here, probably. I think that as we’ve been here,

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we’ve learned that you all do a lot of projects in China, so I think there’s always that struggle with identity so I think that a lot of the time as architects we try to have sensitivity and identity to a place and locality to this point where we take pretty rigorous site analysis and try to find relationships between certain bits of information, and try to pull it all together and incorporate it into the project. So I wanted to ask you your thoughts on identity and architecture and whether you thought that identity is crucial in a world where we can get from here to China in one day. The world is getting smaller and smaller so I feel like identity is getting more and more precious because every place is getting more and more assessable I kind of have two minds about that, I think that you’re right, it’s much more global today, people travel and are connected and probably most importantly they have similar aspirations. So who are we to deny people who aspire to a certain kind of life and lifestyle and standards of living around the world.

If they were looking for the things that we value, why would we deny those things? On the other hand, what we have definitely have found is when we try to get into a place, and really try to understand what we are, because we believe we are, trying to developing a unique architecture, and ultimately try to be different, what is our differentiator, to understand that place and context. I really am a firm believer that somebody has to go to the site and just be at the site, just experience the place. Because it’s very different. We were introduced to a hotel in Arizona, so I went camping on the site with another designer, to see the sun rise and sun set, sound, animals, temperature, the experience of the big sky. It was actually easy to then describe to then client those qualities that you felt were of that place that you wanted to communicate your body and your architecture.

The harder places are you know, in China, or Middle East, or anywhere else that is trying to develop another kind of architectural model that might be more transportable, so what do you do to try to bring a character that relates to the potential of that place without it seeming to be pandering to a characteristic of that location. And can you actually bring something that is kind of abstract and kind of easy, but can you bring something that is a different way to think about their own things that they tell you that you brought it back and interpreted it. I think that theres things about that are quite interesting, so like the Jin Mao project, a tower that looks like a pagoda in Shanghai. But you know it was adopted by the city as being very Chinese, and had these qualities that people really liked. The common person really liked that, maybe to the inteligencia it may seem a little corny. So I kind of believe with the ladder. But then do you then do something instead that abstracts the notion of what a tall structure might be, how do you find those qualities. There is something about that, I believe that the best architects are trying to be different, and they are trying to reinterpret something that might be a certain prevailing mood, certain kind of context or condition that they are trying to make a statement about. I think thats very important, because otherwise you’re only transporting your style or brand to these certain places, and part of a larger spreading of commodity around, a little bit is ok, but if you see 30 buildings that could be from anywhere all kind of in one place, and also in 7 other cities, that ends up being a lost opportunity.

What are the fundamentals of architecture: “we’re struggling with the fundamentals so we struggle with digital world you can make these weird spaces, so she’s worried that you would get rid of things that you clearly define as a space, celling, floor wall” It’s getting easy to blur those things..

We do architecture all the time where floors and walls are all one surface, so I don’t literally mean you have to have floor, wall and surface, but you have to have something that defines, I mean Sol LeWitt was famous trying to define space with the least amount of edges. He would do a whole series of things that were the edges of pieces, but taking one away and you get the sense of space there. So I think that it is a complex thing but you have to have something to define it. It’s something that can’t go away. Some of the traditional responses, would be is a play of light, the quality of light, that is being held by surfaces, There was an architect, Edward Lutyens who was an English architect, in a sense he had some series of buildings, was made out of quartz, at the edge there was a condition where the wall came out, and they had this slight eave that was very thin edge around the space, so it was interesting to see that image of it that he was able to use the sky as really, because of the edging as a way to bring the sky to define that space.

Famously James Turrell, that’s the whole thing. He talked about how a sky dome, how you can flatten out the sky by defining the very thin edge so it almost appears as if it you could touch that surface. So thinking how do you define space? Think about those kind of qualities, these are things people think about, it’s part of architecture to be able to add on to those discoveries and exploration.

Advice? What do you think we have to be capable of to solve world issues through architecture and urban planning?

I’ve very often this, do you read newspaper? Follow politics? I guess my answer to you guys is that lets say design leadership comes from being as smart as you can. You need to be aware of all the humanities, art, literature, history so you can speak intelligently and with and creative authority that is based on information acts experiences because thats how you develop a way for people to believe you. In that way you become thought leaders that isn’t specifically about architecture, details and surfaces and materials and light, there will be people who listen to that stuff, but then in the end they pat you on the head and say “nice architect” and go away while you figure out how it can be built. So I think that a simple answer is to be super well-rounded, does in fact make a difference. When you think about people who are creative designers, they are all over the place, sometimes theres a lot of marketing, so take all of that out. I met a guy named Thomas Heatherwick. I don’t think all of his work is brilliant, but he’s constantly trying to say, “What is it that’s different, how can I bring other experiences to the problem.” So I think that mindset is interesting because you can bring other mindsets, art, biology, science, natural world, craftsmanship, manufacturing , and combine that with a understanding of economics and politics, processes and psychology and sociology, how do you do those things, you will be much more well verse to talk about ideas, provide compelling arguments for those ideas and basically win people over, based on the strength of your content. I think that it only comes from being smarter.. Reading and talking.

But to also collaborate, it really means to be able to be an expert in a few things you are capable of. It doesn’t mean to get a lot of dumb people into a room and come out with some ideas, you get kind of crap. But really getting experts together who are open and willing to bounce ideas off each other, and selfish in a way to have new ideas, and thats how you get true collaboration of being inspired and poked led in direction that you may not have thought about before.

How do you balance life and work?

You have to -and I’m trying to avoid cliches- find a passion for what you do.

And if you have that passion for what you do, it never seems like work. I’ll pull an all-nighter once in a while, because I’m on something and sometimes it’s the fear of failing, but I don’t mind doing it because it’s not work, it’s something I’m really interested in doing. It’s not work but it feels like. for me there isn’t a separation. Not everybody has the chance to think that the things that you do are so interesting, because it doesn’t feel like work. A lot of people have a lot more mundane tasks and other issues. So for us to be sensitive about that, find a balance for you to burn out, to become strange people that don’t have relationships. Maybe families, children, loved ones, and that is an important aspect, because the profession can’t take all of the time you’re willing to give it, and you have to make sure that as a person you’re whole and you realize that there are some priorities and make sure that they don’t sacrifice for your selfish desires. There are a lot of stories of architects I know that their kids turn out to be a little crappy because their kids don’t get any attention or grow up with them, so you have to think about that. The first class I took at Berkley, I took a class with a sculpture, of taking a little section of I beams and stacking tubes on top of each other and chroming. It may not be a big deal today but that’s it. He was an artist/ sculptor/architect and did architecture but teaching at the same time. The first two quarters was about systems, wanting you to be methodical and develop a surge and criteria of what a thing is suppose to do. So you have to design a system that does this, this, this, and this, it had to be modular, it had to connect in ten different ways. It had to be low cost, methodical, all that kind of stuff, so everyone came up with different things, and this is again before the computer, so there was a lot to do with understanding processes, setting up a script to materials, construction and details, so people came up with really interesting things. The last quarter was about taking the same things and design your life. People were thinking, “Oh my god, this is so corny and stupid,” but it was this interesting thing. You had to decide what are the things you want to accomplish how do you want to go about it, what are the things you wan tot do to get to those goals, how do you fit in a personal life with that. In a sense, it’s not a corny exercise, but you have to be aware to get from A to B there are certain things you probably need to do, don’t leave things to chance. Think about it, and make sure that suits you for the kinds of things you are doing.

TAKEAWAY Work is what you make of it. It is important to be constantly be curious and want to learn more. This is for the projects an architect does and also the encounters he makes. To be able to speak intelligently is part of conveying an idea to a client or community and through this you can learn more about the project and the people it’s for.

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TIM SWANSON URBAN STRATEGIST/ASSASSIN | CANNONDESIGN 4.14.15 BACKGROUND We are charged with challenging the future while maintaining a familiarity of the past, identifying the reaches of form while maintaining an honest sense of habitation, responding to the myriad of functional needs while presenting solutions that leave the minimum of footprints. The built environment must be exciting and purposeful, rich in complexity but resolved in presentation; we must make active the landscape while designing within it, committing to a practice of meaning, lasting.

Tim believes that we have a responsibility to the specificity of place and the prospect inherent in a culture and a people. We must broaden our collective understanding of place to identify the myriad of influences that affect the everyday condition. From relationships between transportation, amenity, and built form, we must extend to the nature of health and the human organism, the role that innovation and thought leadership affects quality of place, and the responsibility to create an environment of learning at all ages, for all ages.

DISCUSSION R: First off, a few of our questions have to kind of do with your educational background, how it’s so different from the normal track that an architect takes, so could you talk about that just briefly for a little bit? If you can do it briefly.

T: I guess, you know, it is a little bit atypical but it’s… I dunno, in the end sort of the same thing that we all did. You know… No. yeah, it’s atypical.

K: Yeah, because I know your first degree was in theoretical physics.

T: Yeah, so I started, and that was just me being a nerdy high school kid. I finished high school early. I got into science because I thought it was badass.

And it was, but the... and you’re recording this, so I won’t say that the people I hung out with weren’t. But yeah… It was all about imagining how systems worked and imagining interactions, right, so that sounds sort of familiar. And that’s why I got into it. But it was a little bit intangible. And so I did thaT: I got into economics, because I thought, “Oh that’s a fungible thing, that’s,” well it’s really not fungible I guess, but it impacts people it affects people, it’s actually talking about systems and the way we operate. So I thought that was interesting. Alright, so relationships. And I think it’s still that same sort of story, but to sort of balance that out and, and maybe it’s part of my bipolar perspective, but to balance that out, I got a BFA in sculpture. I wanted to do something that then was actually about stuff. So I liked physics but it was talking about stuff, but in a non-stuff sort of way. Economics was talking about stuff, but in a non-stuff sort of way. So sculpture was just stuff. Straight up stuff in a stuff sort of way. And so I did that for a while. And after school,

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after I finished that up, I worked as a starving artist in New York. I was a DJ in a nightclub; I was just sort of like living life, and not being what I wanted to be when I grew up. I did large-scale sculptures and large-scale installations, and I had a client who said I was just being an idiot and I should just go to architecture. He said, “Everything you’re doing is steel and wood and large construction and they’re spaces and they’re interactive,” so he said, “stop being an idiot and be an architect.” So I went to school for architecture, I agreed with him. And it was still about relationships and stuff. So, got my masters degree in architecture and started working at SOM about halfway through architecture school because it… I was bored with architecture school.

I mean it was fun, but it was sort of, again it was really interesting and theoretical, and I wanted to understand the balance of the real STUFF. K: Where did you go to grad school?

T: Here in Chicago. Um… so it was... I started working at SOM, I worked part time at SOM, so it was like 40 hours a week. Yeah, I know. Just a reality. And when I graduated, I went straight into working for SOM for a little while and then sort of wandered around through architecture and urban planning and design. And that was about stuff, but really about people. And interactions.

K: What firms have you worked in?

T: Started at SOM and then had gone back and forth a couple of times to the middle-east for a couple of projects T: At SOM. And realizing that I had no idea what who I was designing for.

SOM is a wonderful place, I’m sitting in this beautiful office, it’s 80 degrees

outside, the Art Institute is right in front of me, the lake is glistening, and I’m designing for cultures that I don’t understand. Climates that I don’t understand. And I’,d go, and you’d Google what its like in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or UAE or these places and just sort of half-ass it. Or just do your best with what you could Google. And after one of those trips I got back and drove to my wife and said, “I can’t do it like this any more. I need to actually be in that place.” because what we assume is the case is rarely the case once you get there and get to know it. And my wife said, “Well this is a crazy idea.” And it was. But there’s an architecture firM: some guys based out of the UK, Atkins, and they had a design office they were trying to build in Abu Dhabi, and so they reached out at about the same time I was wondering how do I actually be more purposeful with the people and the place. So they reached out and I said okay, and so a couple months later we moved to Abu Dhabi, which was crazy. We were there for about four years I think. And then started to get antsy, started to look at opportunities. We were trying to decide between staying in Abu Dhabi, taking a job back in Chicago, taking a job in Rotterdam, in Shanghai, or outside of Delhi in India. And so they were all amazing jobs, they were all amazing offers, and they were all amazing places. We were like, alright, which way does it go. For whatever strange reason, at the end of the pros and cons list, India won, so we moved to rural India. Peter was just starting a practice in India, and he came calling, so we moved to rural India. We were there for about a year, year and a half. And then we were looking for a larger architecture firm to partner with. So we had a small practice, it was maybe 25 people. But we needed a large office because of the scale of what we were doing. So we started dating firms, we started dating Cannon, started going steady, then one thing led to another, and we joined them three years ago now.

but they were wondering how to do wellness. And they knew how to do education, but they were wondering how to do learning. They knew how to do corporate offices but they wanted to understand the workplace and how people actually engaged. And so for us, these were the perfect questions.

Because we understood the big fabric and we wanted to know how each one of these pieces fit into it. We wanted to know how a student learned the other sixteen hours of the day that they weren’t in the classroom or how somebody didn’t have to go to a hospital because the community supported him. So it was really synergistic. But each one of those offices gave us these widely different perspectives. I worked at a small office for a little time, Bill Worn’s offices. Like 10 or 12 people. And it was like hippy, sustainable, social good, and I remember when I left that firm to go to SOM a bunch of my colleagues were like, “What are you doing? You’re going to the big bad beast.” I said, ”Look. We’re trying to do sustainable things. And we’re doing them for these fifteen-unit apartment buildings in Chicago. And I’m going to work with Gordon gill on a 90-story tower that is self-sufficient and makes its own energy. So I’m doing this same thing that we’re saying that we’re doing, but maybe at a bigger scale.” But yeah, so each one of the firms had a different perspective. And I think that was really awesome. Really valuable to see different approaches to the same thing at the end of the day. Sometimes more overt about humanity and designing for humanity and sometimes not really caring about it but at the end of the day still designing for humans.

So it was interesting.

K: So like not saying that Cannon is your end point, but you’re kind of at this point now, so how have these different structures and philosophies of these different firms, how have they affected your outlook on the profession?

T: Yeah, so whatever scale it is, whatever you’re doing at the end of the day - whether you’re an architect or you’re a planner, a city designer or a product designer or industrial designer, whether you’re a graphic designer, whether you’re an artist, whatever you’re doing, you can’t take design and disassociate it with dignity and humanity. You can’t take design and pull it away from people. Design is pointless without people. The city is empty, we’ve talked about that before, without people. This office is beautiful because we, as humans, see it and then interact with it. For the love of God, that’s the most important thing in design. And so often we ignore that.

So often it’s what do I want to create. What do I want to see. And what am I going to give you. And that’s bullshit man. It’s sort of what do you need, what do you know, what do you have and what do I have, and we get it all out on the table and we create something together. Something that is intrinsically you and intrinsically me. Something that is both of that moment and has legs and a life beyond that. Humanity man, for the love of God we gotta get into that stuff. And we see this in design whether it’s in politics and were talking about the authenticity of politicians and how, in our generation, we reject the notion of the political structure and the political machine because we want to know that it’s doing something. The economy is the same way. Our rebellion towards the 1950s and 60s and a microwave could heat a prepackaged meal in our plastic house and that was the future - and now we’re saying that the future is an apple that you pull off a tree that was planted here, and that’s our notion. It’s more authentic. It’s more meaningful, whether its design or just life in general, it’s about being more authentic. That we can’t lose that. We got to fight for that stuff. We have to.

Because so many people won’t fight for it, but they’ll give lip service to it. We

T: Yeah, that’s a really good question because they’re all very different. SOM is a bit colonistic if I’m going to be honest, right? So you do it here in the comfort of the western world. You sort of craft your object. You pack it safely in a box, you roll the drawings up and they ship it away to somebody else. So that’s one approach to architecture. Atkins, even though I had a small design studio working in Abu Dhabi, it’s a 17000-person organization.

They did everything from architecture and planning to running oil pipelines in Africa. They’re in charge of the entire London school system. They’re all over the place. So that was surreal because that was this wild perspective where everything is related and everything is interconnected. So that was a really cool perspective. Because I could call somebody up who was running the school system while I was designing a police academy and get their perspective. And that was weird. And then from that to in India we had a core team of about 8 and then we had another 15-16 Indian employees.

Young architects who were really sort of understanding and learning, and that was in the field, on the ground. You’re drawing a line with a pencil and there’s a guy with a radio watching you draw your line to a person out in the field carving it into the earth. And that was weird because it was incredibly intimate but incredibly real. And then you come to Cannon and Cannon has these sort of… It’s a different scale than Atkins, but they had the expertise here, these sort of focal areas that I think at least they excited us when we were looking at different firms. Because they new how to do health care,

R: R: So off of that, what do you think is the most important aspect of design, physical or non-physical, for a community specifically? Since you have the aspect of a city planner.

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INTERVIEW TIM SWANSON got to call them up – “if you mean this, then we do this.”

R: do you see that as actually being the future- picking an apple from a tree that you grow in your own yard? What do you see the future of architecture being 15, 20 years down the road?

T: You know, we’re getting better at it. In the profession up to this point, we’ve gotten really good about removing any responsibility that we have, so I joke that as architects we draw pretty pictures and build doll-houses.

And then we give it to someone else, and we give the responsibility and the risk and the requirement to build it to someone else. We give all that away and then wonder why we as profession don’t get respect. Why is everyone in the building industry making money and we’re not? Why is architecture sort of this 2-, 3-, 5-month thing that they just have to deal with in order to actually start building? Why do people care so little about the design process for something they expect to occupy for the next 5 decades? That rests on our shoulders as a profession because we’re kind of nervous about all that stuff. Did I ever talk to you guys about the notion of old-school mass? So theres this notion that the old cathedrals were massive, but not in the way we think about them, not because of the weight of the stone, not because of the scale, but because of their gravity and presence in a sort of experiential and human way. When that cathedral was built, it was built over a hundred years. When I started it, i did not finish. thats massive, right? When we were building a dome, we would pile dirt stories high to build that dome. That’s massive. We would do these things and there was a gravity to the process that we’ve lost. So yes, now when we look at these cathedrals or any sort of big old artifact, we see the massive scale of it but it’s really the massive process, the investment into it. With the master builder notion of a designer and an architect, not only did you sketch it out but you had to know what you’d be drawing in the first place.

Technology is sort of bringing us all the way back around with that right? up until the date, it’s meant that we can do anything. Mies can do curtain walls and Jeanie Gang can have satellite-controlled balconies and all these sorts of things and technology has allowed us to do that. And now technology is moving us a step further, where you can think of a detail and imagine what that’s like, and then you can sit with a 3d printer and make it, so you can understand how it could actually work or couldn’t. So all of the sudden, we’re coming full circle, back to the apple on the tree. If you think about it in the community, you have the mom and pop shops, and they serve their community and they are part of their community and they are part of the fabric and then a big store like Walmart showed up and it sold everything, and hosed these mom and pop shops because you could get it all in one place, cheaper, better, faster. And thats a fine thing, thats not offensive. technology is coming all the way back around. So now Amazon is a much bigger box than Walmart, and they’re causing Walmarts and Best Buys to struggle, because Amazon can put a box in every state, not in every city, and get you something by the end of the day. So technology has gotten rid of the big box, but now you don’t have a place to go. I buy 80-90% of my stuff online and then the other 10-15% i get at the little tiny mom and pop shops and hipster shops that are opening up again because you need human interaction. You aren’t going to get an amazing donut from amazon.

You’ll get everything else from Amazon, but i can go and have a cup of coffee and enjoy this donut because i don’t have to go to the store to get

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diapers. We get diapers shipped to our house, automatically. They know we have twins and so their algorithms know when to send them, and they’re pretty damn good- it’s weird. So what technology is now allowing us to do is to be more human in our interactions. Theres this notion of wearables, like an Apple Watch, and some of the reviewers were saying they’ve noticed that they don’t use their phone as much. They’ll just get little snippets of information and when it’s time they can look at it and go back to what they were doing. The interface is about “tapping” so you can be connected to the digital world but in a very intimate sort of thing. My wife can put two fingers on her Apple watch, if we were to have them, and I could feel her heartbeat on my skin. so all of the sudden, technology is getting out of the way. It’s getting so good that it’s out of the way. The proliferation of the US and the growth of cars happened simultaneously, and now we’re at the point where Über can get you a car wherever you are, Zipcar means you don’t have to have cars in the first place, and the Teslas and Googles of the world are doing self-driving electric cars. Now what happens when they all go together?

When you don’t have parking garages, but you have your own car, or any car you want, and it meets you downstairs because when you close the door to your flat, you tap something on your wrist or it knows where you’re going based on your calendar, and there’s a car waiting outside to take you there. So now technology is getting out of the way and giving you more time to do and be a human. Philosophers have suggested, and you see this in Utopian films, that the Utopian future is all philosophers in beautiful white robes sitting under trees eating an apple because technology has gotten to a point where that we’re afforded to do and afforded to think and to be and to create because of that. So I do see that is where we’re going, and as a profession that is where we’re going. We have the opportunity to go there or we have the opportunity to let other people get there. We see amazing technology that stacks bricks and 3d prints in concrete and we can either be the masters of those and we can be part of that process or we can be outside of it. We see community activist groups and sociologists and anthropologists trying to understand the human condition so they can create the right built environment whether it’s planning or buildings for them, or we can be part of that. So we can be fully invested and go headlong into the way that the world’s operating, or we can just think that people are going to continue hiring us for doll-houses and pretty pictures.

A: So where do you see yourself going in your career?

T: It’s a tricky question, and it’s sort of wavered over the years. A year and a half ago, I was going to step away from architecture and planning, and go and get a degree in public policy. Because I felt like that was one of those roadblocks where as a designer you’re really trying to make an impact on the world and you hit policy, and Policy is never like, “Here, let me help you.”

Policy is like, “I’M RIGHT HERE IN THE WAY” and you’ve got to go over it or under it or around it, and you get creative to get past it. So i thought if i understood public policy better, I could understand design better, and i could make that impact. And then magically convinced the Harris School of Public Policy, one of the greatest public policy schools in the country, to hire me as a faculty vitae. So i said “Alright, I don’t need to go to policy school, I’ll just lie to them” So if i come from a design perspective and they come from a policy perspective, let’s talk about it before it becomes a regulation, let’s think about how those things work. I see that as a thread through my life. I see myself focusing more on this notion of designing for humanity, whatever that might

be. We’ve got this city design practice and this urban strategy that we’re running here, and I dig it, but I don’t like that it’s an “other”, that it’s a thing “over here” that could be added onto any project. I want human-centered design to be this sort of everything, whatever scale it might be. And take that notion, and this used to be a joke for me but may become reality, really understand how you can be an engaged member of this sort of government, and what’s a political platform that is about human-centered engagement and design. I never want to be a politician but do you engage in something like that? How do you be part of a story? How do we use the talents that we’ve been given and the tools that we have to really push our agenda forward and make this world a better place? So that’s what I want to do. I don’t know where that is, but I think the cool that i’ve found and what i’d stress to y’all, is that you can do it. Every step of the way has nothing to do with the other steps, but they all do. they all bridge together and help me grow and give me width and depth. So they all make sense together when you look at them together, and it’s the same thing whether you’re designing a building or a city. So we’ll see. I just want to help people!

M: So you’ve spoken about why you wanted to become an urban designer.

Can you elaborate on what your role is within Cannon Design?

T: Oh Jesus, I don’t know. Sandy Stevenson used to joke that what I did best was integration and creative probleM:solving, and a willingness to say “Lets look at everything.” If someone is talking about a table and I know that person over there has a background in furniture design, the first thing I’ll say is “I don’t know, let me grab someone.” I’d say that’s my role is at CannonDesign, and why I’ve been successful is a willingness to say “I have no idea, but let’s get the people who do.” I know how to do a lot of things, but I don’t know how to do more things. But what I do well is to bring people together to have a dialogue and to be non-egotistical about where that solution comes from. So it is about sort of bringing people together at building scale and cultural district scale, which is what I’m working on right now. I’m about to start a new city in Kuwait and an overlay for a city in India. and i think we got those and I’ll be successful at those because we’re bringing all the right people together and not taking a sheet of paper and saying “here, this is what it is,”- I have no idea what it is. But together we’ll figure it out and together it’ll be more robust. and with the client and community engaged, together you’ll have ownership and you’ll want to do this more and you’ll find things to do. Thats what i do here, i think.

R: So what do you think about the big one-name architect firms like Tom Mayne/Morphosis who’s may be that egotistical, “this is my building, I’m going to do what I want” kind of firm?

T: Alright, it’s going to sound awful, but if your name is on the door, I’m done with you. You’ve sort of answered the question already. If that’s your name on the door, and theres another door within that office with another version of your name on it, Sorry Charlie. I give up. Now thats not to say that they don’t do beautiful buildings. It’s not to say that Michael Schumacher isn’t a brilliant talented visionary architect at Zaha’s office, but he’s a dick. He’s the guy who was saying it’s not his responsibility to be concerned about the social justice welfare of the people that either build or live in their buildings“we create form”. Shut the fuck up!

T: Yes we do, but in service of all of that, not despite it. I was walking with someone, who will remain nameless, we were walking through a campus in Bert, Texas and there was sort of this covered walkway that connects a lot of buildings. It is delightful, well shaded, and the columns were covered in these advertisements for school clubs, fraternity/sorority rushing, and all this sort of stuff. Class let out and it was just packed and this person said, “It would be so much nicer if we didn’t allow students to put anything of the columns and there was like 80% less courtyard.” I said, “Do you understand the whole point of all of this is the people here?” There is this notion that in general we sit down, I take a napkin, I give you an answer and that’s it.

Napkins aren’t designed to break bread; napkins are designed to share drinks and really get to know each other, not to provide answers. You can’t provide an answer, you just can’t I’m sorry. That’s not to say you can’t do something phenomenal. So that’s how I sort of catch myself, like Tom Mayne does some pretty great buildings, also some junk. Bjarke Ingles does a really good job with buildings, but at the end of the day is it more about the building and new ways to build buildings? So that’s one side of the coin, the other side is that pure high-minded design with defined materiality that I love, I cherish, and care about, but in service to us living there. So there is sort of the form follows function or function follows form, like screw it all, really. There’s not like two different things. There not like the form bucket and the function bucket, and then mix it in on either side, because you missed the point.

K: With your philosophy of connecting certain people, is there a project that sticks out in your mind where you got to accomplish your concepts?

T: Yeah there is actually and there’s one were we missed the boat entirely.

So we did this India city for two million people and every day we watched laborers come in from the farms and they would build scaffolding made out of bamboo, like three stories tall! They were tied together and they would just hang on it and work. Well the plumbing failed, and the buildings cracked, and everything was just awful. The India building code requires that you can’t have any plumbing inside any walls. So the buildings facades are like this, you have these external chases for every pipe and then they are usually covered by some kind of screening because the pipes will break.

K: Was it the quality of the pipes?

T: The quality of everything! So there’s an effort that I was really pushing hard for with our client who was a billionaire, so he could do it. Bring in a construction manager, someone who knows how buildings work. The client was in concrete however, he could do only little in concrete even though he was the country’s largest distributer and builder of concrete. Again, Jeanne Gang’s satellite guided thin shell concrete; everything is at least 4 feet thick and there is no flat surface. If you ask someone to do a 4 by 4 by 4 cube, it would be this sort of rhombus at the end of the day. So that was one issue, the other one was we were building a middle class community and how many of those people coming out from farms are like, “oh my gosh, Becky I can’t wait for us to get a two bedroom flat overlooking the park.” No, their entire closet is the cloths they are wearing, that’s the reality. So this was a huge opportunity to say alright you’re contractors, you build stuff, you would make more money if you built it better, you would have fewer injuries if you built it better, your employees would be better paid if you built it better and if they were better compensated. So build a trade school in a village and

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INTERVIEW TIM SWANSON then invest into that village and that village is not just going to send people straight from the onion fields to the construction site. Now you are bringing people who are trained to do the stuff that you want so you can actually do better work. If you do better work then you can pay them better, and you make more money, and things are more fetching, and you can be a modern country. Again, it is sort of all about paying attention to not actually how you’re building but who you’re building, and who you’re building is the big question. So I maybe I’m the kind of guy working with my hands in the field but I can save up to send my daughter to a trade school in the village and she can send my grandson to a community school in the town, and my grandson can send my great granddaughter to a university. Now we built and supported each layer of the community, each socioeconomic link, we kept it all continuous and raised the whole damn thing around them instead of doing this, right. So this was a huge opportunity and a huge miss, a huge missed opportunity.

K: So did he not make the public school?

T: He just didn’t see the value in it. He said, “Well how much is this going to cost me to build the school?”

T: He would say that all the time and my response to him was, “Say Mr. Gore you’re building a five thousand acre city for two million people, you know how to look into the future bro.” Come ‘on we’re talking about where the subway trains are going to go, even if we start building it now it wouldn’t be done in a decade. So at Cannon one of the most interesting kinds of project was a small project, the cemetery at Brownsville, a tiny little project 12 acre park. So we won the project, won the interview, for a 12 acre park with 3 month design process and as a 12 acre park it connects to the edges of these tiny little horseshoe lakes that are part of the urban fabric. We won the project because we talked to them by saying let work with their public utilities board and use these as water storage facilities so when it rains there is fresh water, because fresh water is a big issue there.

way. We worked with the community health coalition to help get grants for community gardens, which also helped this park but also bring people to the park and get them invested into it. We convinced people to build a bridge over the river so we could have two communities that who could both access it. Then went after HUD funding for community revitalization grants to build those communities up and invest back into those communities. So all of this stuff led to a really great park, a park that the American Architecture Foundation recognized in 2014. We got to a park that is just beautiful; it’s so beautiful not just because of what it looks like, but because of how it functions, and how everybody in the community is invested and raising money for it. We partnered with non-profits who were taking the tires out, pulling them from the lake and building planted retaining walls to beautify neighborhoods. With the Harris School students we started talking about how the school has an early start program to teach parents to raise their two year olds so they can eat better, so they are better educated, better performers, it was all over the board. One could argue the editor of the newspaper down there when we were talking about them said, “I don’t understand how this has anything to do with designing a park or planning, or urban design.” So by the time we were done he was like, “Oh shit, if we don’t think about all this about all these things then it’s just a park, and we have plenty of those, what’s the point in that?” Plant some nice grass; call it a day and it going to fall into disrepair later on. Instead it’s something wildly different. I love that story because it’s a tiny story and you know in the grand scale, one is a multi-billion dollar city and the other is this tiny little poor community park, but this one is having more impact down here where as this one wasn’t willing to ask the questions they didn’t need to. This one had to ask those questions and explore that stuff because when you are at the bottom you have to look at everything so you have a good view of what’s there. When you’re at the top, you’re at the top, things are down here and you don’t see it. This was a cool project.

M: going back to you more general..

T: yes, I am an assassin.

K: Where is this?

T: Brownsville, Texas, right up the border. What was really fun about it; again it was this meaningless little project, like a couple napkin sketches on thinking of the design. So 3 month design process, we spent 9 weeks not drawing anything. 9 weeks engaging the entire community to understand who was living around this park and understand how they were using it, what assets were missing, what are the success stories, what are the stories the next generation of Brownsville folks want to have. We had workshops with students from the richest private high schools and one of the poorest schools in Texas at the same time. They were like, “what the hell are you doing,” but they are high schoolers they have the same cares and concerns, let talk to them. Let’s not say they’re different let say they’re the same, and they were like, “you can’t do that.” Guess what it was brilliant, they engaged because they like soccer, dancing, sketching, music or whatever they might be. We worked with the university and high schools to help support them by saying that the university students can teach high school science teachers about wetlands so they can teach their science classes. If you actually teach people the value of the wetlands and freshwater storage that’s going to be good for the utility systems long-term and it will be more resilient that

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K: you keep telling us that, you’re not going to be a very good assassin, people are just going to be like, “oh theres Tim, the assassin.

No, eventually the CIA is going to be like hey, heard you wanna be an assassin. I have get their attention.

M: So what is the balance for you with your professional life and your personal life so far, and how will that change in the future?

So, there is this notion that if you love what you do, then its not working, then it is your life. There is also this notion, I think from my personal perspective, that its all about human engagement and relationship. I gotta practice what I preach, which means I have to be available for my family.

And being available - watching and learning- how a five year old interacts with space, tells me a lot. I could ignore them, but its actually impactful to my work to understand how a five year old. It’s impactful to see my wife’s perspective, or my kid’s perspective, or my friend’s perspective. Its impactful for me to get out of the office and spend time with friends and congregate in public spaces, or restaurants and bars. To understand what all of that means.

so again, the human is the center of your focus, so its equally relevant to working and to life. I’d say I’m pretty good at it, and part of that is one, that I don’t sleep much, and two, is that I look from my perspective that I have 24 hours of the day and I don’t have to limit that to any structure. So ill go home and leave early to play with my son at the park. I’ll be working on a paper or doing some sketches at 2 in the morning. Thats not to say you have to do it that way. Life is a priority, work should be part of that life, because you love what you’re doing. Find a situation where that is the case and then its not a balancing act. Balancing act is when you have a little fulcrum and you’re trying to drop grains of sand to keep it level and you know that as soon as you put too much on, it tips. Thats about balance. Really about wholeheartedly living is when there is no effort to slide things back and forth, when you’re really jellin’ with what you’re doing, what you believe in, how you’re living, you’re spending 0 time on that little scale. Because, often times, people who are trying to do that balancing act spend more time on the balancing than on the things they’re trying to balance. I go home and I spend quality time with my family, and as long as I’m sitting there with my family with my phone, then its not quality. You’re focused on the balance, you aren’t focused on the quality. And there have been different seasons of my life, Ive been more invested or less invested, but I think through the whole thing, when were in Abu Dhabi and we were considering different options, I started to smell that I would have to start balancing, I started to notice that I was fully vested. So it was time to pivot. And one of the options was to pivot here, another there. So moving to rural India and working crazy hours to make something happen, but simultaneously a good life balance. Because Beth and Josiah were next door and we would have breakfast, lunch, and dinner together and play in the park together. And I’m still working 16 hours a day, but unbeknownst to them. It was just heaven.

And it was hell, but it was heaven. So it’s an important question because we’re masochistic in our profession. If you’re a designer, you’re never going to be done. And that means that any second more you have, you’re going to continue. I learned something early on at SOM from a really good friend of mine, he said, “Always take dinner and always go for walks with a friend or significant other, because at the end of the day. If it’s 6 o’clock and you stay at your desk, you’re going to go home at midnight. If it’s 6 o’clock and you go for a 30 minute walk, you’re going to go home at midnight. You’re going to make up for it feeling refreshed. So were going to work until the last hour, and that means we’ll be burnt out and then that last hour is worthless, so take that hour and do something that actually counts.

Urbanismo’, its a Latin American document and its designed to be given to anybody, sort of a guerrilla urbanism for anybody. We’re translating that to English right now. So many communities can use that. I’m going to teach people all the right ways to break the rules.

A: What rules can be broken?

As many as possible. All of them. You don’t know the value of the rule until you push it. And it’s not breaking rule just to break a rule. If you have a conviction on something, push that conviction in all directions. And if it runs up to a rule, you kind of have to weigh how much you believe in the rule as a rule or more so about the conviction. Sometimes the rule will snap and you’ll kind of just go right through it, sometimes that rule snaps and pops a hole in your conviction. And that’s ok, it’ll let your idea expand. It’s all about asking for forgiveness. Challenge and push and be creative. Never accept the status quo. A lot of people complain about an entitled generation. That people just expect that they should get something. I joke that that’s actually a huge asset that we don’t recognize. There are a lot of people that just expect something, but then theres the other half the generation that believe they are entitled to make changes and if you’re in their way, they’re going to go around you because they believe theres something better. They’re saying they don’t have to suck it up and hate this thing for the next 3 decades. They can go change the world and pivot until they get to do what they want. So break every rule, not just to break it, don’t run around with a baseball bat, because then it’s all about the swing of the bat. The inflation of a conviction is all about the growing and swelling of the idea and opportunity. A baseball bat is just destructive. And sometimes you’ll push against a rule and it won’t budge, and you realize that its fundamental, and that’s an ok thing, until it’s not.

K: So going into our last year in undergraduate, do you have any advice for opportunities we should really take while we’re in an institution that we might not get in a firm or anywhere else.

A: What are you writing?

There is so much thoughtfulness in an institution. There are countless Virginia Tech students that have said that Chicago Studio is wildly different, you actually see the impact and its so different than Blacksburg, and then you go back to Blacksburg and back to the books. Thats a great thing, so take everything that you’ve tested in the real world and take that back to school and test that against theory and perspective and freedom and opportunity.

It is the back and forth, and you’ll never get that opportunity again, be without a client or community, and then come back and test them in the real world. In this last year, really leverage every faculty member, even in other departments. Chase it to the ends of the earth, because you have access to it. If you’re looking at the human condition and how humans interact, go hang out in the education or behavioral science program, go hang out with the anthropologists and sociologists. It’s much easier to do that when you’re on a campus.

Helping a community understand what they need from cultural districts.

Also, working on a white paper for how the design process needs to be this whole hearted process. So part of the UN Habitats Placemaking leadership group, trying to codify some of the things that were talking about there, into this meaningful approach. Also, doing some translating with ‘El manual de

TAKEAWAY The message from this discussion was simply to understand that we are providing a service to other people, not ourselves. We have a responsibility in our profession and it is our role to plan and build responsibly and with consideration of the place. Tim’s energy also spoke to motivation in this.

M: Have you seen any time commitment extremes, or any change in your workflow?

It’s about time organization and allocation. One of them likes to be awake for an hour at 2 in the morning, so I get some writing done with the baby on my chest, life is good. So it’s taking a breather when you need it and pushing through when you can?

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PAUL O’CONNOR URBAN STRATEGIST | SOM 4.17.15 BACKGROUND Seen a lot, learned a lot. Still care a lot. My brag: A rare synthesis of strategic and operational know how, with demonstrable national and international success in city building, marketing communications, civic nonprofit leadership, government management, and news media craftsmanship -- a compounding career on the cutting edges of global and cultural change. With marketopening experience in Japan, China, Australia, Eastern Europe and Russia -- using an easy touch, multi-cultural alertness, and seasoned street savvy.

A talent mentor with a good eye. An innovative leader in workforce and economic development. A skilled writer by craft, insatiable thinker by nature, and a genuinely funny guy by Jove.

DISCUSSION What brought you to SOM? The immediate route was I ran and created an organize called World Business Chicago which is a non for profit economic organization that reports to the mayor of Chicago and to a board of CEO’s. While sitting on that, I was part of the committee for the central area plan which Phil Enquist and his team here of urban designers were doing for the city of Chicago. So I got to know Phil then and then I left there and went to work for Metropolis 2020 which was a regional planning organization that was created 10-12 prior by the commercial club of Chicago which was the long time blue chip business organization that paid for the Burnham plan. I went there to help do the Burnham Plan centennial 2009. In that course it renew relationships with Phil and the team and what grew out of their contribution of the centennial is the ongoing Great Lakes 100 year vision plan which is still going on. So along the way getting e-mails back and forth. One time Phil was putting together a group to compete for a national park service plan for the restoration and reinvigoration for the St. Louis arch. So then he sent out this email to a few people, it’s a nightmare how do you do that, I came back with a few suggestions, free, nothing is on the line, so his reaction to that, was that he wanted to do a little freelance, and writing it up as visionary thing. After that he said that I really should work there, and we went out for drinks an he described what he needed and I told him that it’s a full time job, rather than a consulting thing. So I did a swimsuit competition with his partners and apparently passed that test and came on full time a little over 4 years ago. So indirectly, the lesson there, is you get to know people and see their competencies and things come together serendipitously.

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Are there certain aspects of your background and upbringings that have shaped your philosophies and principals?

Probably, both my father and mother were active in their own ways in Chicago. My mother on the arts and culture side of life and trying to popularize those and my father kind of a public figure on television, talking mostly about politics and about other things that effected the future. So the inbred was the notion of public service was fundamental in whatever it is that you do, which is a another thing that led me to SOM and has been a big part of SOM, because they are very much aware of being thought leaders, they wanted to make a contribution of more than make money and build things, that they want to improve life, that it is about building quality of life, building cities, so that building cities that has always been a part of my life.

What else has been a big influence of your work?

Being a write has been huge, that’s my craft. So what it does is it tries to make manage of a complex situations and by being able to define things and pin them down allows action to take place or be seen in an actionable way.

What are some of the qualities of life and the visions that you mentioned?

They’re kind of basic to me. There is a fundamental humanity in which there genuinely is no difference in people in that some are smarter, poorer, richer, some are great basketball players, some are klutzes. But there is an essential element in each of us is what we most are and that is what we have in common so that the fundamental respect that engenders and from that cascades all kinds of other things that people should be treated with respect, they should be listened to, even if they are dopes and maniacs. But the

quality of life really is the pursuit of happiness. I think the US founders that was there breakthrough concept was the notion of pursuit of happiness and that can be done in a variety of ways, a billion ways, but that there are some fundamentals that fall in the realm of urban design, like access to residents, decent places to live and it’s close access to nature, fresh air and recreational actives to culture and that those tend to be driven by densities than other things, the ability to get a job be trained to have a job, be educated enough to have a job and then have the where with all of transportation, ideally transit to get the job and those kinds of things. So the thing that the really well educated people like you and others don’t understand is that most people don’t want to become senior executives in corporations or the top designer in the firm, they want to have a life. They want to work and provide for their family and get their money and go home. And so that’s a big part of life, that it’s not all Adam Smith on steroids.

Growing up in Chicago, do you have a draw to the great lake initiative?

What the design intent for the built environment?

I think this is really enabled by Phil Enquist, when you start at developing those sensibilities, you have to start applying them when you realize these things. So that there are no questions about the environmental considerations, for every project that is all around the world. There is an element, if you will, evangelism, in terms of trying to convince the clients that you have to do this, you won’t have the water, if you want to build this huge city in the dessert, the cost of doing that by car are huge compared to by doing it by transit, just in terms of economics. So you have to advocate for these kinds of things. It’s mutually beneficial, so the practice gets to break into Australia for a project and their goal is water positive. Well how do you do that? So we try to figure that out, and what we know already is green roofs, and urban agriculture, and walkable densities. There are also local effects as far as 35 million square feet, so how do you cut the carbon footprint of that.

So there’s an initiative with the Mayor’s office, so lets try to reduce CO2 and energy by 20% in 5 years which is easily done. The advantage of a global practice is that you actually get to do this stuff. The turnover is so fast, the speed is so fast in terms of the design of the cities, it’s unbelievable. So what you’re doing in city design, you’re setting up these infrastructure and natural frameworks, so you are playing this fundamentally strategic game, so you don’t actually fill them all in.

Well that becomes the game for all of the marbles on the planet, you have this explosive growth of population and you have this radical and speedy urbanization, and you have an explosive growth in the middle class, all of which can be named a major drivers on the environment both in terms of the negative impacts of carbon combustion as it being the primary driver of things and then as the availability of resources to be able to eat and have fresh water and those kinds of things. The chief among them is water and that being an issue, and that it looks to be the greatest significant threat of the planet in terms of sustaining large populations. First you want to stop doing damage, ideally you would want to create an environment in which nature and the built environment are in harmony. That’s one of the brilliant pieces that are missed from the Burnham plan is that notion of creating breathable fresh green air spaces. How that is achievable is through density and the ability to have densities turn into mixed used densities to then have the ability to work, live, get your groceries, do religious things, and make it walkable rather than making monolithic stacks of buildings. We have to get out of the individual car phase, in order to move that many people you have to do it by mass transit means and so that’s another component. Then there are the issues of how you farm. In the US, we are rich so we put, as the green revolution has done around the world, put petroleum products on as fertilizers and pesticides, and those are flowing into the waterways and they are polluting the water. Sources of energy are a critical issue, the overwhelming amount of coal and oil are the drivers of the world’s energy.

Burning them to create electricity throws off a huge amount of particular matter, green house gasses, and also like mercury and other toxics into the water supply. Then you’ve got in the developing world, the economic plunder of the environment, examples such as China and the former Soviet Union, the pursuit of money at all costs is producing poison food like cadmium in the rice in Shanghai, farmers go into the rice paddies and come out with blistered legs because of the poison. So the challenge is extraordinary so on the one hand, at the top end the pursuit of happiness is good, healthy , nature, but unless there are better ways that are found to grow food have cities operate better, so that there is genuinely a holistic on the down side as well as on the up side.

Not really. I’ve spent the better part of my life to escape the place, and that obviously failed, so far, I’ve made few pretty good attempts. I think I have always had a strategic sensibility and again that issue of a concern for humanity, so that’s a big canvas. One of the things that most woke me up to the water in the Great Lakes was having been in world business Chicago. So the issue there was to position Chicago for investment and attraction of the top talent so that entailed a strategic analysis of the place. So what do you have that no one else has, what are your long term assets, and they range from ideally a well working O’Hare airport to the most precious asset of all which is fresh water.

How far is your work extended both demographically and geographically?

Based out of Chicago office, how are you along with the team able to understand the context and geography of locations across the world?

Part of it is the element of humanity. Part of it is being open and listening so you realize that there is a customer, and the customer is in a culture. One of the things you see when you walk around these hallways in the diversity of people from all kinds of backgrounds, and having that is helpful. Also to have as a design principal and philosophy, you want to make places that are resonant with the local culture, that feels like home with you’re done.

So the ironic twist of your question is that we ended up lobbying all of our Chinese clients to not bulldoze your life, your culture away. So only now the president is saying you have to stop doing that, but they didn’t care.. so to some extent you end up with a Disneyland where the form is the same, but you end up with everything looking the same, and you can’t call it home, and it’s where you live.

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INTERVIEW PAUL O’CONNOR Can you describe the process with how you collaborate with the client?

In many ways you have to do your best to understand who you’re talking to, that’s the thing that’s missing the most, especially in the advanced firm, they are so smart, so good at this, that they think that what they make is good, by itself. On one hand you are a visitor in someone else’s country, so you should make every effort to know who they are, what the culture of the place is. What is the history of the company, who owns this, who’s making the decisions, so that the most important thing is that nothing is generic, you’re always speaking to somebody, so who is it? If you can’t nail it down, who it is, then who are they and you do the best you can, at least before you present to them, find out who they are, what their values are, it’s generally available now on the internet. Look up the company, their philosophy, community values, what are it’s environmental values, where do they come from, and these things tell you how you’re able to approach them. To some extent if you have to convince them of something new, then hopefully that background will give you some insight to establish a ground for conversation.

You become more than the guy in the suit that their paying. Another thing that designers don’t do a good job of is when in meetings, they don’t listen, and they don’t take notes. Here I am, this gray haired suit, in with a junior staff and I’m writing like a maniac, because the client knows how infrequent these meetings are, and all of the kept desires, demands and frustrations and aspirations are going to come out. The richness of that conversation is enormous, so rather than trying to think they are happy, but next time they won’t be because you didn’t change anything, you didn’t write it down. The next step is to pursue your interests and natural inquisition, what exactly did they say, how does that translate. Engage them, ask questions, because people will give you answers and look in advance because the earlier you do it in the design process makes a difference. Even if you’re wrong, it means an enormous amount that you tried. It’s an enormous statement of respect.

You have to see creativity that all of their input defines a solution, as oppose to doing things whole cloth because theoretically right. You have real problems and real opportunities that you create the walls of the box in which creativity functions best. When creativity faced with infinite options, it’s a nightmare, but to the extent that the walls are closed in on you, and you can almost suffocate from them, unbelievably smart things can come out of that.

How do you represent things that are irrational and emotional?

Pictures and analogies. Bruce Mau, one of the things he does, is to make you sketch. Even if you’re not an artist, he makes you do it anyway, and it’s pretty close. Then you sketch him, then he changes the pose and everyone captures that, the difference, maybe in the crudest possible way, so I would recommend going the other way as well. It’s not so much that you write the contiguous sentence or phrase, put in the pictures to define the concept, and use analogies, showing pictures for what it feels like or what it could be, “the smell of the baguette as it comes out of the over.” Focus on those evocative particulars and communicate those emotions. The balance between emotion and reason is really important, and it’s a huge insight if you can get to it because when you’re asking people to do something, what you want to do is mobilize the will, and the will is emotion, so if you can engage emotions that helps make it move as oppose to intellect to why this is a good thing, well they can understand that it’s a good thing, but they don’t want to build it.

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How and where do you think technology will take the architecture as a field?

SOM is the radicals by introducing digital technology and architecture, it was going to change everything, take the soul out of design. Now in terms of communication, the go to is the standard form in which the client and you can collaborate. As the bandwidth has grown, I think that there is a lag between capturing that opportunity to work simultaneously so you can ingrate detail so that it’s there but it’s not yet captured. I think that 2 active pens, one in Shanghai and one here, that’s already the case. There’s surprisingly not a lot of Skyping here.. but what is starting is in desperation Google translations, so if you get something from the field or the client, they will be able to get some sense of what it is without the translator. I think that it’s mostly been a down side as far as urban design, because things move too quickly, because technology brings things to refinement and to polish, when what you need in the beginning is to turn the computer off and use a pencil and create sketches by hand, to the point where you have your framework and fundamental concepts. The computer also becomes a isolation device, so you look out and see these are all collaborative studios, well they sit together, and only at pin up time is when people really get together. In planning the main beef is that drawings are immediately drawn on the computer.

Technology can waste an infinite amount of time. There is not yet a marriage design driving the technology, technology is driving the designers.

What are some outlets or creative pursuits that you have that helps with design or strengthens how you work?

In my interview with Phil, he asked the same question, and he really didn’t care what it was, it was just that there was something else, other things because they all enrich your life. I do poetry and collage and other things, and have interests way beyond making places, but they’re places to live. If you’re a boater, you probably want to find good docks and make sure they’re located right. These things keep you alive, and you have to keep jazzing your head, you have to keep putting vitamins in there. Sometimes it can get really numbing, especially at this pace, and at this density.

What is your advice to young architects?

Do it for a reason. Go somewhere. Care about something. Buildings are a very expensive sculpture, and there are better ways to do sculpture. If you really are motivated by a higher purpose, it will sustain you through the shit and the unbelievable slavery tedium that your profession seems to demand.

You have to push forward, and sometimes that means taking the risk of taking back a little bit, but it’s really important to be assertive, and there’s nice ways to do it. You’re not going to be discovered, if you have aspirations or ambitions, you have to advance those. No one tells you how to do anything so ask people. Advance your ideas, go talk to the next level, go engage partners to the extend that they will let you. They will put you in your niche, they will decide what your best use is. So the main thing is to take advantage of everybody, ask everything, people seem to be isolated in their own little bubbles, but if you ask, they will tell you so pursue your curiosity. It is important to do PR for yourself. It’s all about movement. The actual growth inside of yourselves is the one that really matters. You’re a work in progress until your 50 and you get all of the ingredients for your particular soup and very soon it will be a very unique and distinctive soup,

and there a ton of ingredients you can pluck off the tree and people will prepare you to get those.

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INTERVIEW

NATHAN KIPNIS PRINCIPAL | KIPNIS ARCHITECTURE 4.27.15 BACKGROUND Stanley Tigerman, FAIA and Archeworks co-founder said of Nathan Kipnis, “He is one of Chicago’s new breed of up and coming architect’s who blends excellence in Architecture with a social conscience. Before the advent of air conditioning, before electricity, everything that was built related to nature.

Nate understands that. He made a habit of it long before it was fashionable.”

Mr. Kipnis has been instrumental in helping to development the idea of an offshore wind farm off of Evanston’s shoreline, whose concept received a Design Evanston Urban Design/Planning award. Additionally, he is currently serving on the Chicago AIA’s Committee on the Environment, helping to produce a carbon tracking tool to assist architects in their effort to meet the AIA’s 2030 Commitment.

Nathan Kipnis’ interest in energy efficient design started during the 1973 energy crisis. In 1983, when just 22 years old, Mr. Kipnis’ designed his first solar home, located in Boulder, CO.

DISCUSSION What drew you to architecture?

Like a lot of people in architecture, I can blame Lincoln Logs and Legos for that. As a kid, I really wanted to be an architect. What got me into sustainability, and it sure wasn’t called that back then, was as a little kid, I was 12 years old and the Arab-Isreali War in 1973 started and there was an oil embargo and as a little kid, seeing all the adults freak out. Gas went from, hard to believe, 50 cents to a dollar overnight, it would be like $3 to $6 today, and what a panic that was and chain reaction in the economy. So I started seeing in magazines, Popular Science, Popular mechanics with solar homes and I wanted to be an architect, I thought “Wow, thats really cool.”

Also I have family in Israel, so that kind of spun my head around, and I was thinking that was something important to do. I kept up on that and was aware of it. Even buying cars as a kid, my first car was a Mustang, but it was a Mustang MPG, which was horrible, it got 15 miles to the gallon and they called it MPG. It wasn’t a new car or anything, but just trying to be aware of everything. And then when I went to Boulder at the University of Colorado, they had a really good solar program and by the time I got to grad school at Arizona State, they had a masters of architecture with an energy conscious design emphasis, so it completed the whole thing and by the time I got out, I was thinking I was gonna do all this great stuff and of course there was nothing going on. So it took a long time to get that in gear, but it had always been planned. I was lucky to be taught by some really good people there.

You mentioned the places you’ve been and that you’ve moved with your studies and practice. How did moving around influence you and your work?

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I think it’s always a good idea to go to different places. Unlike now, where you guys probably flew here and flew there and checked out a hotel, I didn’t do any of that, I applied to a couple of different places and one of them was in Boulder and I got accepted and I have never been there, but have always wanted to go. It was night and day. I don’t believe I had been west 20 miles of here before that in my life, so just going there and living there and seeing this community that was at the forefront of organic, solar, and passive-solar, and community living, and walkable communities. When I was there they had community bike races or runs, olympic gold medalists in the group.

That used to be where they trained before they set up in Colorado Springs, so there were olympians everywhere, so it was a whole different thing. In Arizona, it was good in some ways, but living there was horrible. This is an area that is ground zero of climate change. They’re going to dry up and turn to dust, I’m surprised California lapped them. I would have thought Vegas and Phoenix would be gone by now, and they’re going to be in big trouble.

But it was interesting to be there, I didn’t like living there, but it was the proverbial nice place to visit. So I came back, this is like architecture capital in my mind, so it’s been great.

There has been a huge transition to what sustainability means and the overlap of meaning. In your experience, what is your view of sustainability, or what ever it was called before?

It was called energy design. That was really the main thing, I don’t think anybody realized what was going on with CO2 and all that stuff. I mean some people did, but very few. Water wasn’t really a big deal, it was really about building energy efficient city. Even my emphasis on energy conscious

design, it was about energy, and it slowly morphed into a lot of things. which makes sense. I think the way LEED has it set up is pretty smart with the way the Living Building challenge is, pretty holistically. But if you look at LEED or LBC, 50 percent or more is the energy part, still a big thing. Water efficiency is very important here, I mean, we’re really lucky to have Lake Michigan.

Where is the best place in the country to be as things change? There was a guy on the radio, James Howard Kunstler, he did two radio shows going area by area and he threw away the south east immediately as way too humid when things get bad, its going to be too expensive to run air conditioning and the west is not going to have any water. The whole southern part, which is funny because 30 years ago everyone was wanting to get out of the north to go down south. Now the people from California, if you think long term enough, they’re going to move to move to Chicago. Same with the people in New York if the sea levels rise. We have water, its not going to rise, and is the climate going to be good? I can’t exactly tell. We’ve got great soil and great growing potential. Its funny whats goes around comes back around.

the computer some animations with the sun up high and it was really weird because we’re used to the sun being in this little range where we can shade it so easily. I get a lot of info from the internet and email lists I’m on. I’m really lucky, because of the wind farm project I’m on, I’m in this think tank in Cambridge that invites me out periodically. We actually got news that we’re meeting out in Denver in a couple weeks and Ill be one of the speakers this time. It’s some of the best people in the world. We knew about the water energy nexus years ago and I was getting all this info all the time. Just now on my email, there were three this morning from the best guys in the world on this stuff. I don’t have time to read them all, but I can pick it up little bit by osmosis. If I see something really good, I’ll read it. And now with this new convention they’re having, I’m getting my head screwed back on about that.

I do pick up some very interesting things from them. Water is a big one now and they’re talking about how to speed up implementation of alternative energy, best building practice, walkability and smart town planning?

Because the built environment is so sensitive, does your design focus on the priority of the built environment or the people?

I am the only architect, it’s so weird. Because of the wind farm, they’ve invited me to this thing and it’s all grassroots people and I’m on Citizens Greener Evanston, which is a group, and so most of the people are from 70 different communities around the country. I’m the only architect, I’m the only not full time grassroots organizer. So I always feel kind of weird. When I go there everyone is always on the front line of some environmental catastrophe, so in West Virginia they have mountain top removal, in Kentucky they have the coal thing going on, fracking in Pennsylvania, and I’m saying we have renewable energy in evanston and they wanna kill me. But it is really amazing to keep in touch with these people and they put out publications.

They bring these people in to get opinions and to teach us what to do and go back, but they also get from us that they’re not in some ivory tower. They get a sense of what’s going on on the ground. In the last meeting we had, there were people looking like zombies from the fracking and stuff and the amount of difficulty that we’re dealing with. You don’t understand that until you meet with these people. They were almost crying, not even presenting, just yelling at each other, so its pretty intense. I’m pretty lucky to get that info from them and to be on their list. They are also working on this research group called Synapse Consulting, very high powered. They’re reports are free online, you can download them, and they’re amazing. It’s like here’s where solar PV is going in the future, here’s where waste for this is, here’s where the water problems are and you can just cherry pick what you need. Most firms just don’t realize they have this kind of stuff. What I have at my fingertips is pretty good.

Well you have to balance both. Theres plenty examples of buildings that perform probably fine, its the difference between an engineer building a building and an architect. An engineer knows a lot about a little, they’re really focused on something, and an architect knows a little bit about a lot, so we’re uniquely positioned to be able to see the big picture and to figure out what to do with things. Like our little office, I work on the offshore wind farm that we’ve been working on for eight years. It’s a crazy, giant idea, a really good one I think, and that’s what an architect can do is go, “mmm, yep” and an engineer would go like, “well here’s the sprocket size that we need to make that wind turbine move.” We need them, but its not their forte.

In talking about the people too, do you find yourself having to convince them too about your ideas?

I am very lucky to be in a position where I’m at. Because I’ve been doing this for so long like this, we have a reputation and people come to us. I don’t need to convince them of anything, I get that question all the time, “How do you talk people into doing this stuff?” I have to talk them out of doing stuff.

They come with such a big list of big ideas. “I want to do geo-thermal, I want to do this, I want to do that” I go no, for this site and your budget, these things would conflict with each other and you would get very little benefit, this is what we need to do here, and here, and here. Ideas change a little bit over time, but the basic concept of how to combine things is not changing very rapidly. There are some classic notions of keeping thing low energy right off the bat, keeping the size of the house as small as you can. These things are universal and not anything new.

Because there are so many systems that you are able to use, do you talk to other specialists as well and do you pick up new resources and techniques.

It’s kind of just common sense for working in this climate, and we work in other climates too and its always a trip to go out there. We got invited to go to Panama and I was noticing that the sun is up high all the time. I ran on

Who is involved in that convention?

Thats really amazing, and that’s what I see as lacking, an awareness to what’s going on.

Its hard, like when I read an article, three paragraphs aren’t telling you anything and they keep trying to balance it out 50/50 which is ridiculous, its not 50/50, its more like 99/1. Its frustrating to look at what the public is getting served up on this. Such as on Facebook and other social media. I have three different Facebook pages, one for my office, myself, and I actually have a wind farm one too, and so I try to put my info on. And even on that people fall asleep.

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INTERVIEW NATHAN KIPNIS It’s always interesting because architects aren’t really invited to these research conventions.

You mentioned the iPhone and having technology. Is the technology influencing your design for the future? Do you plan for certain things?

Well that’s why I cannot even believe I’m there. Theres a movie coming out called the bird, but we got a lecture from the assistant secretary of defense at one of these things talking about the difficulties. ¾ of the deaths in Iraq were from convoys being hit by IEDs and the convoys are carrying fuel to the front lines. So you know what they said? “Fine, no more fuel. We’re gonna go off grid. We’re gonna have all solar and have everything for the frontline troops.

There’s no more convoys, we’re gonna save that many casualties by doing that. So there’s a case where the military, the people you would think would care about this stuff the least, are the most concerned about it. They’re also concerned about the bases in Virginia, the naval bases, the sea levels rising, the roads flooding and their conflicts that they’re dealing with have to do with famine, which is climate change, resource problems, all these things are all related and they’re the ones having to clean up the mess. So they’re very involved and it freaks out the people most against this who tend to most like the military.

Yeah, we do try to future-proof the houses. A couple things we do, which we’ve been doing for a while, is we’ll run conduit from the electrical up to where we think solar panels are going to go. So you know, big $200 item. So that’s all it takes to get that ready, and later they aren’t ripping that up. Also it plants the idea in their minds to put that in later. The price of panels has been coming down about 10% per year, so at some point the price of regular energy, incentives, or maybe they have extra money sets them up. We also always prewire the garages for electric charges. Its the same simple conduit it’s not any big deal, just a couple hundred dollars to do that, but then later its not several thousand to put in the system. So the other technology stuff is the home kit from Apple. Its making stuff that used to be tens of thousands of dollars now only a couple hundred. The scale jump is unbelievable. I have the lyric thermostat so that’s controllable from iPhone, but it’s also geofenced, so when you get within 5 miles it turns the temperature up. They just had an update, they used to have increments, but now its a slider on the map. I mean duh. So now you can set it to however you want. Someone asked me, “well what if you’re not in a car.” Its your phone, and its never a foot from you, so it’s always going to be right were you are. We also have the ring doorbell so if someone rings the bell, I can answer it here, I can see who it is. We’ve got the hue lights all kinds of stuff, simple stuff, and its all going to get more integrated. The HVAC stuff is what I get excited about. The HVAC and security systems, and AVE, and light systems and everyone talks about the AVE and home security and I get excited about the HVAC which is on the bottom of the list all the time. To be able to control the systems. As smart as our clients might be, they cannot figure out how to do a setback thermostat, and this will help. And just to understand how much power is coming in.

Again, same thing, they tell their friends and become little ambassadors.

And thats something we’ve seen in the office. So I wanted to ask what you opinion is. Do you think architects are idealists when we set up these goals and visions of how to build the future.

I do not think we’re idealists anymore. I think if you go back to the 50s, we would have been crazy. It would have seemed like disney land or Tomorrowland. All these crazy things, flying cars, I think architects are the realists now, well most of them. Architects are the ones that are like “Here’s what we got to do” What, in your opinion, is the moral responsibility of an architect?

So this is what Tigerman asked when he called several years ago. He wanted me to lecture on architecture morality. Is there a moral imperative? Well yea, I don’t know how one designs now without designing sustainably and I know that there’s some people who refuse to believe this is happening. They say, “You’re crazy, the house takes energy to build.” So what you’re saying is that how we’re doing this is perfectly fine, theres no problem. That’s completely untrue. Once in a while, we do a house that is bigger than we’d like, but these people are going to do this house anyway. Just because you have a lot of money doesn’t get you off the hook on doing this. So, what our responsibility is is to try to get it a little smaller but make it really efficient and make sure they actually understand how to use this thing. When you do this, they actually become very proud of this and they’ll start telling people and become little ambassadors. We’re doing a house right now that started off as a vacation home and morphed into a house for up to 16 people for weekends. It went from 3500 to 6000 square feet, which is a large house, but there is no way they’re not going to make it that size. Actually they keep wanting to make it bigger, but we keep trying to hold a line on that.

We’re setting it up so that it functions as many house, so they can throttle it down, iPhone control, different things. So, it’s a challenge, we’re in a funny situation where architects work with really high end clients or really poor.

We do affordable housing and stuff, but there’s nothing in the middle. So we end up a lot of times, with these people who want large houses and so we need to educate them, or maybe not even educate them, just sneak them in.

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A lot of your projects have a forward approach to the before and after and really reserving this historical presence, so what is your approach to designing buildings that are more rehab?

We started our firm 22 years ago as of April, 15th and when we started as a small firm you get little projects thrown your way. Being in Chicago, 95% of the buildings are built. You guys are at SOM and Cannon doing new buildings all over the world, whoopty doo, but around here its all built up, especially at the residential scale, so those were the projects we go, and especially in Evanston. I like figuring out what was going on, its like architectural archeology. Every decade they built differently. People always ask me, “What should I do for energy?” I say “I don’t know, you have to do an energy analysis of the house because they’re built so different” and we’ve been in similar houses and they frame them differently. I did like trying to figure out how to do additions and making them totally seamless and figuring out the language. It was fun, I don’t like doing the same stuff, I know some architects have 50 variations of the same house. So we like to check that out. As we’ve gotten busier we’ve gotten more new work, but still do some. We have one right here in Evanston, a really cool little house and we’re making a copy of it and offsetting it and interconnecting the roofs and its really neat.

In the Nortown Historic Facade Renovation, it was the first time I think I’ve ever seen ornamentation and detailing added to something.

It wasn’t added, it was just hidden under the aluminum. That house was a frame house and they did all that ornament and they put stucco all over it so its really thick walls. If you look at it closely it overlaps the base, that’s not how you do that. I remember looking at it and thinking, “there must be something under there” and they opened it up and we were like “wow, look at that.” It was pretty preserved, usually it rots, but it was a matter of getting the paint colors right and some other details on it. That was a lucky one, that never happens.

In the Panama project, how are you able to maintain locality and cultural and historical design mindset.

That was so weirdly different that the developer took me down there for a week to go look at homes, not just in books, go meet with contractors, see what materials they had, see how difficult it was to get other kinds of materials. That project never went through, that was a casualty of 2008, we went down there in the spring of 2008 and it did take about a week to fully grasp what you could do down there. Almost all detailing and styles have to do with the resolution of the climate, so if they have a lot of rain they’ll have steep roofs, if its humid, things are off the ground. So when you go down there you get it. You don’t need many enclosed rooms there. We didn’t get that far into the design, but what we thought was that there would be a sleeping area air conditioned and the rest of it was just screened and covered and the roofs would be up to let the air move. It was more about moving air and I could see how people would want air conditioning, but you don’t need to air condition a whole giant house.

Do you find a difference in working even more locally in Illinois?

Being in Evanston is a perfect spot for us to go up the North Shore and into Chicago. We do some work on the western suburbs, but not a lot. Our best wheelhouse is up and down the lake. We’ve got two projects in Wisconsin close to that Sturgeon Bay House which is going to be an awesomely cool house and one is a rehab of a modern house, where were changing a lot right on the Illinois/Wisconsin border. We’ve got a very good shot at something in western Illinois. Around here, its not a big deal you can roll up and get it, but those things I go up there for a day and keep going to the site and see what it’s like. Trying to maximize the possibilities. I have to borrow a car, my little electric car can’t make it all the way out there.

What type of specialists do you have for projects?

It’s funny, in 22 years we’ve had two projects that we’ve had mechanical engineers on. One right now, the 6000 square foot one because its going to be net zero, heavy duty, probably 100+ PV panels, 100+ solar-thermal panels because they’re going to have a pool and the concept of what were trying to do. We could probably do this in-house but it’s a little scary. We used to work for a mechanical engineer and all these classes relate to energy stuff. We typically do everything in house, including the net positive house.

Which is net positive only because it has a gas furnace and water heater, but otherwise all the electricity is covered by the solar panels. So we have a solar company that we keep using and they engineer their stuff for us, they don’t charge, they just do it. Otherwise, structural consultants, civil engineers, not a big deal. We’re starting to use landscape architects a little more tightly so

that’s a good thing. Swimming pools, I’m not a big fan of, but we’ve done a few of them and there are some companies that take care of that for us.

Do you see your projects in the future making use of certain specialists more?

I think we’re starting to offload some of our work to mechanical engineers. It’s so technical now, not that it wasn’t before, but as you get into these passive house stuff and the performance has really got to hit it. We recently bought this really cool software called Sefaira Energy Modeling. We had been using a simple program because I do lectures for the AIA on how to have small firms do this modeling, but we finally got a good program. It’s the difference between being free and being a thousand bucks, but it’s really amazing.

I was using HEED before, from UCLA freebie program. I’m speaking at the AIA convention again, same lecture I gave last year on energy modeling for all 2030 commitment for smaller firms. Rand Eckman was the head of the 2030 committee in Chicago and nationally, so he told me to figure out how to answer the questions for small firms and to take away the problems of cost and ease of use. So I found this little program and I do a live demo on how to use it.

What advice would you give us?

Unlike when I popped out of school, I think you’re in a much better spot for people understanding this. When I got out in an invisibility cloak like from that movie with quogahogorgorts, Harry Potter. You just start talking about energy design in the mid 80s and no one wanted to even talk to me. It used to be that in 73, 79, 80s there were all these energy problems and the US would call Saudi Arabia to pump more oil or pretend it doesn’t exist and now they can’t do that. Everyone having access on the internet, the cat’s out of the bag. I think that architects are the key component of this. Buildings are the main producer of CO2, so architects have a huge role and the people that are educated in this are going to be in a really good spot. There were only 12 of us in that graduating class that got that masters in architecture with focus on energy conscious design and I would say of the 12, half of us work in offices and 3 or 4 are designers. When I was in that situation, there was ASU, MIT, UCLA, Berkeley, Austin, that was about it. Now there are schools that don’t have this emphasis and I am stunned, absolutely stunned how they are not cranking out to do this. I was at an AIA convention 5 years ago in San Antonio. The year before they had 20% of the courses are on sustainability, and then the next year 100% were with Al Gore as the Keynote Speaker. I was at breakfast listening to two guys, some architects, talking about how they don’t believe in climate change. It’s still very politically set. If you wanna be an ostrich with your head in the sand, what I tell people is to go to Florida quick and do it because you won’t be able to too much longer. That’s the way I would go. I would play it up big time.

TAKEAWAY Nathan had a very strong focus on the environmental aspect of architecture.

Building is an energy intensive process so as architects, there is a lot of responsibility to not only make the process as efficient and sustainable as possible, but also accommodating and “future-proofed” to anticipate technologies that do not exist today. His incorporation of these ideas in his own projects, along with other sustainability groups he belongs to reinforce this idea.

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HYPOTHETICAL FIRM PARTNER: JOANNA BRINDISE

The first part to thinking about our hypothetical firm was to identify our interests in architecture. Even a single focus in architecture can branch off to many different applications.

We were interested in humanitarian architecture in regards to people and families who cannot afford a home or have recently lost theirs due to any of various scenarios such as war or natural disaster. A global report was conducted in 2013 by the UN Refugee Agency and stated, “51.2 million individuals were forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations.” A 2008 study presented by World Bank showed that “at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.”

Whether people have been living in areas of poverty, or have fallen into it due to unfortunate events, there is a role architecture can play in assisting people and promoting a healthy way of life. A complex web of projects and organizations strive to this same goal. However, they often fall short due to funding. Why is it that architecture survives as an elitist service? Architects are often sought out by the few specific clients with wallets ready (although sometimes cautiously). Who designs for the majority of people who cannot seek out such a service? How can an architect, designer, and builder be profitable with this demographic? That is what this assignment analyzes through developing a hypothetical firm.

The second part was to identify a location from which to operate our firm. Looking at maps locating natural disasters and displaced people, we gather some sense of troubled areas. We discussed that we do not want our work to be tethered to one single location, although we see it as important to have a “home base” from which to manage key operations. This location should be relatively economically and politically stable, even though that may conflict with the areas our work focuses on. We chose Medellin, Colombia for its ever growing economic opportunity as well as prevalence of poverty.

We believe that although we want to cater to several different cultures, climates, and demographics in our missions, everyone has a core set of basic needs and desires -happiness, health, comfort, community- that architecture can universally provide.

From there we can apply our ideas and then tailor them to accommodate the aforementioned differences between locations.

188

Refugees (crossed international border)

IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons)

189

Cost Of Living

Property Prices

HYPOTHETICAL FIRM Numbeo

>

Cost of Living

>

Comparison

Crime

>

Health Care

Colombia vs United States

>

Pollution

Traffic

Quality Of Life

Travel

Quality Of Life

Travel

Bogota vs Chicago, IL

Cost of Living Comparison Between Bogota and Chicago, IL Numbeo Like

0

>

Cost of Living

Tweet

>

Comparison 0

>

Colombia vs United States 0

>

Bogota vs Chicago, IL

Before starting to Comparison put numbers toBetween our firm. Bogota We wanted Cost of Living andtoChicago, IL Switch to: --- Select section --compare the cost of living and business in Colombia compared Like 0 Tweet 0 Prices Cost Of0 Living Property Crime Care Pollution Traffic the United States. We used Bogotá and ChicagoHealth as references.

You would need around 4,786.37$ (11,554,289.56Col$) in Chicago, IL to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with Switch to: --- Select section --5,100,000.00Col$ in Bogota (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculation uses our Consumer Prices Including Rent Index. This comparison assumes net earnings (after income tax).

You would need around 4,786.37$ (11,554,289.56Col$) in Chicago, IL to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 5,100,000.00Col$ in Bogota (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculation uses our Consumer Prices Including Rent Index. This Indices Difference comparison assumes net earnings (after income tax).

Consumer Prices in Chicago, IL are 83.29% higher than in Bogota Numbeo > Cost of Living > Comparison > Colombia vs United States > Bogota vs Chicago, IL Consumer Prices Including Rent in Chicago, IL are 126.55% higher than in Bogota Indices Difference Rent Prices in Chicago, IL are 236.98% higher in Bogota IL Cost of Living Comparison Between Bogota andthan Chicago, Consumer Prices in Chicago, IL are 83.29% higher than in Bogota Restaurant Prices in Chicago, IL are 145.11% higher than in Bogota Consumer Prices Including Like 0 0 IL are 126.55% higher than in Bogota Tweet 0 Rent in Chicago, Groceries Prices in Chicago, IL are 104.91% higher than in Bogota Rent Prices in Chicago, IL are 236.98% higher than in Bogota Purchasing Switch to: Local --- Select section --- Power in Chicago, IL is 230.31% higher than in Bogota Restaurant Prices in Chicago, IL are 145.11% higher than in Bogota Prices in Chicago, are 104.91% higher Currency: COP Groceries Default Currency Switch toILmetric measurement unitsthan in Bogota You wouldLocal needPurchasing around 4,786.37$ (11,554,289.56Col$) in Chicago, to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with Power in Chicago, IL is 230.31% higherIL than in Bogota Difference Chicago, IL 5,100,000.00Col$ in Bogota (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculationBogota uses our Consumer Prices Including Rent Index. This comparison assumes net earnings (after income tax).

Currency: COP Default Currency Switch to metric measurement units [Edit] [Edit]

Restaurants

Bogota Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant 9,000.00 Col$ Indices Difference Meal for 2, Mid-range Restaurant, Three-course 60,000.00 Col$ [Edit] Restaurants Consumer Prices in Chicago, IL are 83.29% higher than in Bogota McMeal at McDonalds (or Equivalent Combo Meal) 14,000.00 Col$ Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant 9,000.00 Col$ Consumer Prices Including Rent in Chicago, IL are 126.55% higher than in Bogota Domestic Beer (0.5 liter draught) 3,000.00 Col$ Meal for 2, Mid-rangeRent Restaurant, Three-course 60,000.00 Col$ Prices in Chicago, IL are 236.98% higher than in Bogota Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle) 5,000.00 Col$ McMeal at McDonalds (or Equivalent Combo Meal) 14,000.00 Col$ Restaurant Prices in Chicago, IL are 145.11% higher than in Bogota Cappuccino (regular) 3,466.67 Col$ Domestic Beer (0.5 liter draught) Col$ Prices in Chicago, IL are 104.91% higher than3,000.00 in Bogota Coke/Pepsi (0.33Groceries liter bottle) 2,085.52 Col$ Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle) 5,000.00 Col$ Purchasing Power in Chicago, IL is 230.31% higher than1,840.38 in Bogota Water (0.33Local liter bottle) Col$ Cappuccino (regular) 3,466.67 Col$ Currency: Default Currency Switch to metric measurement units Coke/PepsiCOP (0.33 liter bottle) 2,085.52 Col$ [Edit] Markets Water (0.33 liter bottle) 1,840.38 Col$ Bogota Milk (regular), (1 gallon) 9,589.71 Col$ [Edit] Restaurants Loaf of Fresh White Bread (1 lb) 2,487.96 Col$ Markets Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant 9,000.00 [Edit] Col$ Rice (white), (1 lb) 1,397.07 Col$ Milk (1 gallon)Restaurant, Three-course 9,589.71 Col$ Meal(regular), for 2, Mid-range 60,000.00 Eggs (12) 4,208.08 Col$ Loaf of Fresh White Bread (1 lb) 2,487.96 Col$ McMeal at McDonalds (or Equivalent Combo Meal) 14,000.00 Local Cheese (1 lb) 5,731.22 Col$ Rice (white), (1 lb) 1,397.07 Col$ Domestic Beer (0.5 liter draught) 3,000.00 Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (1 lb) 4,754.11 Col$ Eggs (12) Beer (0.33 liter bottle) 4,208.08 Imported 5,000.00 Col$ Apples (1 lb) 2,620.76 Col$ Local Cheese(regular) (1 lb) 5,731.22 Col$ Cappuccino 3,466.67 Oranges (1 lb) 1,660.30 Col$ Chicken Breasts 4,754.11 Col$ Coke/Pepsi (0.33(Boneless, liter bottle)Skinless), (1 lb) 2,085.52 Tomato (1 lb) 1,184.27 Col$ Apples(0.33 (1 lb)liter bottle) 2,620.76 Col$ Water 1,840.38 Potato (1 lb) 977.49 Col$ Oranges (1 lb) 1,660.30 Col$ Lettuce (1 head) 1,794.72 Col$ Tomato (1 lb) 1,184.27 Col$ Water (1.5 liter bottle) 2,962.44 [Edit] Col$ Markets Potato (1 lb) 977.49 Col$ Bottle of Wine (Mid-Range) 24,000.00 Col$ Milk (regular), (1 gallon) 9,589.71 Col$ Lettuce (1 head) 1,794.72 Col$ Domestic BeerWhite (0.5 liter bottle) 2,400.00 Col$ Col$ Loaf of Fresh Bread (1 lb) 2,487.96 Water (1.5 liter bottle) 2,962.44 Col$ Imported Beer 4,822.22 Col$ Col$ Rice (white), (1 (0.33 lb) liter bottle) 1,397.07 Bottle of Wine (Mid-Range) 24,000.00 Col$ Pack Cigarettes (Marlboro) 4,500.00 Eggs of (12) 4,208.08 Col$ Col$ Domestic Beer (0.5 liter bottle) 2,400.00 Col$ Local Cheese (1 lb) 5,731.22 Col$ Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle) 4,822.22 Col$ Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (1 lb) 4,754.11 [Edit] Col$ Transportation Pack of Cigarettes (Marlboro) 4,500.00 Col$ Apples (1 lb) 2,620.76 Col$ One-way Ticket (Local Transport) 1,700.00 Col$ Oranges (1 lb) 1,660.30 Col$ Monthly Pass (Regular Price) 88,200.00 Col$ Transportation Tomato (1 lb) 1,184.27 [Edit] Col$ Taxi Start (Normal Tariff) 3,900.00 Col$ One-way (Local Transport) 1,700.00 Potato (1 Ticket lb) 977.49 Col$ Monthly (1 Pass (Regular Price) 88,200.00 Lettuce head) 1,794.72 Col$ Taxi Start Tariff) 3,900.00 Col$ Water (1.5(Normal liter bottle) 2,962.44 Bottle of Wine (Mid-Range) 24,000.00 Col$ Taxi 1 mile (Normal Tariff) 2,896.82 Col$ Taxi 1hour Beer Waiting Tariff) 20,000.00 Domestic (0.5(Normal liter bottle) 2,400.00 Col$ Col$ Gasoline gallon) 8,476.18 Imported(1 Beer (0.33 liter bottle) 4,822.22 Col$ Col$ Volkswagen Golf 1.4(Marlboro) 90 KW Trendline (Or Equivalent New Car) 40,000,000.00 Pack of Cigarettes 4,500.00 Col$ Col$

Utilities (Monthly) Transportation

190

Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 915 sq ft Apartment One-way Ticket (Local Transport) 1Monthly min. of Pass Prepaid MobilePrice) Tariff Local (No Discounts or Plans) (Regular Internet (6 (Normal Mbps, Unlimited Data, Cable/ADSL) Taxi Start Tariff)

[Edit] [Edit]

230,698.05 1,700.00 Col$ Col$ 213.20 Col$ 88,200.00 Col$ 71,061.46 3,900.00 Col$ Col$

Chicago, IL 26,554.00 Col$ 144,840.00 Col$ [Edit] 16,161.73 Col$ 26,554.00 Col$ 9,656.00 Col$ 144,840.00 Col$ 14,484.00 Col$ 16,161.73 Col$ 9,098.77 Col$ 9,656.00 Col$ 4,228.52 Col$ 14,484.00 Col$ 4,029.37 Col$ 9,098.77 Col$ 4,228.52 Col$ [Edit] 4,029.37 Col$ Chicago, IL 10,412.77 Col$ [Edit] 4,191.41 Col$ 26,554.00 [Edit] Col$ 2,343.74 Col$ 10,412.77 Col$ 144,840.00 5,809.69 Col$ 4,191.41 Col$ 16,161.73 9,034.63 Col$ 2,343.74 Col$ 9,656.00 10,950.32 Col$ 5,809.69 Col$ 14,484.00 3,841.26 Col$ 9,034.63 Col$ 9,098.77 3,243.26 Col$ 10,950.32 4,228.52 Col$ 5,107.82 Col$ 3,841.26 Col$ 4,029.37 2,365.72 Col$ 3,243.26 Col$ 3,335.34 Col$ 5,107.82 Col$ 4,498.09 [Edit] Col$ 2,365.72 Col$ 26,554.00 Col$ 10,412.77 Col$ 3,335.34 Col$ 4,224.50 Col$ Col$ 4,191.41 4,498.09 Col$ 4,353.25 Col$ Col$ 2,343.74 26,554.00 Col$ 28,968.00 5,809.69 Col$ Col$ 4,224.50 Col$ 9,034.63 Col$ 4,353.25 Col$ 10,950.32 [Edit] Col$ 28,968.00 Col$ 3,841.26 Col$ 5,431.50 Col$ 3,243.26 Col$ 241,400.00 Col$ 5,107.82 [Edit] Col$ 7,845.50 Col$ 5,431.50 2,365.72 Col$ 241,400.00 3,335.34 Col$ 7,845.50 Col$ 4,498.09 26,554.00 Col$ 4,599.29 Col$ 72,420.00 4,224.50 Col$ Col$ 8,177.23 4,353.25 Col$ Col$ 45,866,000.00 28,968.00 Col$ Col$

Difference +195.04 % +141.40 %

+15.44 % +195.04 % +221.87 % +141.40 % +189.68 % +15.44 % +162.46 % +221.87 % +102.76 % +189.68 % +118.94 % +162.46 % +102.76 %

Difference +118.94 % +8.58 %

+68.47 % +195.04 % +67.76 % +8.58 % +141.40 +38.06 % +68.47 % +15.44 +57.64 % +67.76 % +221.87 +130.33 % +38.06 % +189.68 +46.57 % +57.64 % +162.46 +95.34 % +130.33 % +102.76 +331.31 % +46.57 % +118.94 +142.02 % +95.34 % +85.84 % +331.31 % +51.84 % +142.02 % +10.64 % +8.58 % +85.84 % +76.02 % % +68.47 +51.84 % -9.73 % % +67.76 +10.64 % +543.73 +38.06 % % +76.02 % +57.64 % -9.73 % +130.33 % +543.73 % +46.57 % +219.50 % +95.34 % +173.70 % +331.31 % +101.17 % +219.50 % +142.02 +173.70 +85.84 % +101.17 +51.84 % +10.64 % % +58.77

+262.10 +76.02 % % -3.53 -9.73 % %

+14.67 % +543.73 %

[Edit] [Edit]

276,500.07 5,431.50 Col$ Col$ 458.66 Col$ 241,400.00 Col$ 91,430.25 7,845.50 Col$ Col$

+19.85 % +219.50 %

+115.13 +173.70 % % +28.66 % +101.17 %

Taxi 1 mile (Normal Tariff) Taxi 1hour Waiting (Normal Tariff) Gasoline (1 gallon) Volkswagen Golf 1.4 90 KW Trendline (Or Equivalent New Car)

Utilities (Monthly)

Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 915 sq ft Apartment 1 min. of Prepaid Mobile Tariff Local (No Discounts or Plans) Internet (6 Mbps, Unlimited Data, Cable/ADSL)

Sports And Leisure

Fitness Club, Monthly Fee for 1 Adult Tennis Court Rent (1 Hour on Weekend) Cinema, International Release, 1 Seat

Clothing And Shoes

1 Pair of Jeans (Levis 501 Or Similar) 1 Summer Dress in a Chain Store (Zara, H&M, ...)

1 Pair of Nike Running Shoes 1 Pair of Men Leather Shoes

Rent Per Month

Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre

Buy Apartment Price

Price per Square Feet to Buy Apartment in City Centre Price per Square Feet to Buy Apartment Outside of Centre

Salaries And Financing

Average Monthly Disposable Salary (After Tax) Mortgage Interest Rate in Percentages (%), Yearly Last update Contributors: Data from past: Currency: COP Like

100 75

0

Tweet

0

2,896.82 Col$ 20,000.00 Col$ 8,476.18 Col$ 40,000,000.00 Col$

4,599.29 Col$ 72,420.00 Col$ 8,177.23 Col$ 45,866,000.00 Col$

[Edit]

[Edit]

230,698.05 Col$ 213.20 Col$ 71,061.46 Col$

276,500.07 Col$ 458.66 Col$ 91,430.25 Col$

[Edit]

[Edit]

109,083.33 Col$ 28,714.29 Col$ 10,000.00 Col$

92,932.97 Col$ 48,280.00 Col$ 26,554.00 Col$

[Edit]

[Edit]

175,855.68 Col$ 103,067.73 Col$ 216,666.67 Col$ 205,000.00 Col$

101,991.50 Col$ 78,450.98 Col$ 207,201.67 Col$ 261,401.71 Col$

[Edit]

[Edit]

1,046,153.85 Col$ 985,714.29 Col$ 2,000,000.00 Col$ 1,773,333.33 Col$

4,276,071.82 Col$ 2,351,455.45 Col$ 7,517,885.71 Col$ 5,109,633.33 Col$

[Edit]

[Edit]

394,928.39 Col$ 334,016.96 Col$

734,453.39 Col$ 442,562.98 Col$

[Edit]

[Edit]

900,942.84 Col$ 12.15

6,741,989.60 Col$ 4.03

April, 2015 117 18 months

April, 2015 170 18 months

+58.77 %

+262.10 % -3.53 % +14.67 %

+19.85 % +115.13 % +28.66 %

-14.81 % +68.14 % +165.54 %

-42.00 % -23.88 % -4.37 % +27.51 %

+308.74 % +138.55 % +275.89 % +188.14 %

+85.97 % +32.50 %

+648.33 % -66.82 %

0

Cost of Living Index (Current, By City)

191 Rio De Janeiro CPI: 56.94

1 Planning the yearly office budget First figure your total yearly payroll: Principal architect: Job captain: Drafter: Drafter/spec writer: Secretary: Real Estate Developer: Property Manager: Leasing Agent:

(No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.)

2 2 6 2 1 1 1 1

@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

68,000 35,000 23,500 27,000 16,000 50,000 50,000 10,000

= = = = = = = =

Total yearly payroll: Then figure your overhead: Payroll taxes and benefits (avg. 25% of total yearly payroll): Rent: (~$60/sqft) Utilities, phone, internet, postage: Accounting, services:

$ $ $

50,000 5,000 5,000

Equipment, supplies, printing: Insurance: Marketing:

$ $ $

30,000 50,000 10,000

Dues, training:

$

-

All other: Total expenses:

$

-

"Total to run the office:" Profit percentage:

192

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

136,000 70,000 141,000 54,000 16,000 50,000 50,000 10,000

$

527,000

$

131,750

$

150,000

$

808,750

x

30%

Profit amount:

$

242,625

"Total to run office"+ profit amount= yearly revenue goal:

$

1,051,375

2 Now figure your office efficiency ratio: Percentage of total hours which each category can bill to projects: Principal architect: Job captain: Drafter: Drafter/spec writer: Secretary: Real Estate Developer: Property Manager: Leasing Agent:

100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

of 2000 hrs. x of 2000 hrs. x of 2000 hrs. x of 2000 hrs. x of 2000 hrs. x of 2000 hrs. x of 2000 hrs. x of 2000 hrs. x

(No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.) (No.)

2 2 6 2 1 1 1 1

= = = = = = = =

4,000 4,000 12,000 4,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000

Total hours the office will bill in a year:

32,000

Total hours staff will work in a year (no. staffx 2000):

32,000

Office efficiency ratio (hrs. will billรท hrs. will work):

=

billable hrs./yr. billable hrs./yr. billable hrs./yr. billable hrs./yr. billable hrs./yr. billable hrs./yr. billable hrs./yr. billable hrs./yr.

1.00

Now (at last) figure your office multiplier: $

527,000 1.00

office can earn income:

$

527,000

Yearly revenue goal:

$

1,051,375

Yearly payroll: Efficiency ratio:

x

Billable salary on which

Divide yearly revenue goalby billable salary

=

2.00

Office multiplier

193

HYPOTHETICAL FIRM

3 Now figure your office billing rates: (office multiplierx hourly salary [ = yearly salaryรท 2000] ) Principal architect: Job captain: Drafter:

2.00 2.00 2.00

x x x

$ $ $

34.00 17.50 11.75

= = =

$ $ $

68 35 23

Drafter/spec writer: Secretary: Real Estate Developer: Property Manager: Leasing Agent:

2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00

x x x x x

$ $ $ $ $

13.50 8.00 25.00 25.00 5.00

= = = = =

$ $ $ $ $

27 16 50 50 10

Now figure how many hours per week each category of staff can work on projects: (percentage of time billablex 40 hours) Principal architect: Job captain:

100% 100%

x x

40 hours 40 hours

= =

40 40

hrs./wk. hrs./wk.

Drafter: Drafter/spec writer:

100% 100%

x x

40 hours 40 hours

= =

40 40

hrs./wk. hrs./wk.

Secretary: Real Estate Developer:

100% 100%

x x

40 hours 40 hours

= =

40 40

hrs./wk. hrs./wk.

Property Manager: Leasing Agent:

100% 100%

x x

40 hours 40 hours

= =

40 40

hrs./wk. hrs./wk.

4 Budgeting the project Project Budget Service Percentage

$

5,000,000 12%

$

600,000

-

$ $

45,000 555,000

= = = = =

$ $ $ $ $

83,250 111,000 222,000 27,750 111,000

First figure how much fee you have to work with: Total fee from the client for the project: Fee to structural consultant: Fee to mechanical consultant: Fee(s) to other consultant(s): Total fees to consultants: Total fee remaining to architect:

$ $ $

20,000 20,000 5,000

Then figure how much of fee to architectyou can spend during each phase: Schematics: Design development: Construction documents: Bidding/negotiation: Construction:

15% 20% 40% 5% 20% (

194

100%

of of of of of )

$ $ $ $ $

555,000 555,000 555,000 555,000 555,000

5 Then allocate those phase fees among your staff: First figure the maximum hours each staff category can devote to a phase (billable hrs. per weekx calendar weeks in the phase = max. billable hrs.): During schematics: $

83,250

Principal architect: Job captain:

( (

40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

12 12

wks. = wks. =

480 480

hrs. hrs.

) )

480 240

hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $

68 35

= =

$ $

32,559 8,379

Drafter: Drafter/spec writer:

( (

40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

12 12

wks. = wks. =

480 480

hrs. hrs.

) )

400 400

hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $

23 27

= =

$ $

9,377 10,773

Secretary

Total fee for the phase:

(

40

hrs./wk. x

12

wks. =

480

hrs.

)

480

hrs. @

$

16

=

$

7,661

Real Estate Developer: ( Property Manager: (

40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

12 12

wks. = wks. =

480 480

hrs. hrs.

) )

50 0

hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $

50 50

= =

$ $

2,494 -

Leasing Agent:

40

hrs./wk. x

12

wks. =

480

hrs.

)

0

hrs. @

$

10

=

$

-

$

68,748

(

Total fee to be charged to the phase:

During design development: $

111,000

Principal architect: Job captain:

( (

40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

12 12

wks. = wks. =

480 480

hrs. hrs.

) )

480 240

hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $

68 35

= =

$ $

32,559 8,379

Drafter: Drafter/spec writer:

( (

40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

12 12

wks. = wks. =

480 480

hrs. hrs.

) )

240 240

hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $

23 27

= =

$ $

5,626 6,464

Secretary ( Real Estate Developer: ( Property Manager: (

40 40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

12 12 12

wks. = wks. = wks. =

480 480 480

hrs. hrs. hrs.

) ) )

480 50 0

hrs. @ hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $ $

16 50 50

= = =

$ $ $

7,661 2,494 -

Leasing Agent:

40

hrs./wk. x

12

wks. =

480

hrs.

)

0

hrs. @

$

10

=

$

-

$

63,182

Total fee for the phase:

(

Total fee to be charged to the phase:

During construction documents: $

222,000

Principal architect: Job captain:

( (

40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

12 12

wks. = wks. =

480 480

hrs. hrs.

) )

200 400

hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $

68 35

= =

$ $

13,566 13,965

Drafter: Drafter/spec writer: Secretary Real Estate Developer: Property Manager:

( ( ( ( (

40 40 40 40 40

hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk.

x x x x x

12 12 12 12 12

wks. wks. wks. wks. wks.

= = = = =

480 480 480 480 480

hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs.

) ) ) ) )

528 528 100 0 0

hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs.

@ @ @ @ @

$ $ $ $ $

23 27 16 50 50

= = = = =

$ $ $ $ $

12,377 14,220 1,596 -

Leasing Agent:

(

40

hrs./wk. x

12

wks. =

480

hrs.

)

0

hrs. @

$

10

=

$

-

$

55,725

$

27,750

Total fee for the phase:

Total fee to be charged to the phase:

During bidding/negotiation: Total fee for the phase: Principal architect: Job captain:

( (

40 40

hrs./wk. x hrs./wk. x

4 4

wks. = wks. =

160 160

hrs. hrs.

) )

25 150

hrs. @ hrs. @

$ $

68 35

= =

$ $

1,696 5,237

Drafter: Drafter/spec writer: Secretary Real Estate Developer: Property Manager: Leasing Agent:

( ( ( ( ( (

40 40 40 40 40 40

hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk.

4 4 4 4 4 4

wks. wks. wks. wks. wks. wks.

160 160 160 160 160 160

hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs.

) ) ) ) ) )

0 0 0 100 100 50

hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs. hrs.

$ $ $ $ $ $

23 27 16 50 50 10

= = = = = =

$ $ $ $ $ $

4,988 4,988 499

$

17,407

$

111,000

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

6,783 34,913 2,344 2,693 7,980 49,875 49,875 9,975

Total fee to be charged to the phase:

$

164,439

Total fee to be charged: Total fee from the client for the project:

$ $

369,501 600,000

x x x x x x

= = = = = =

@ @ @ @ @ @

Total fee to be charged to the phase:

During construction: Total fee for the phase: Principal architect: Job captain: Drafter: Drafter/spec writer: Secretary Real Estate Developer: Property Manager: Leasing Agent:

( ( ( ( ( ( ( (

40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk. hrs./wk.

x x x x x x x x

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

wks. wks. wks. wks. wks. wks. wks. wks.

= = = = = = = =

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LECTURE

SARAH WHITING CHICAGO ELASTIC GRID 4.10.15 | IIT CROWN HALL LECTURER BACKGROUND

LECTURE NOTES considers self historian, theorist, critic - feels all are compatible with each other and with architecture interest in individual - audience of architecture superblock -limitless powers, indicates importance Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America false word is like BOX WITHOUT BOTTOM potency between abstract and meaning tension 1. civil organizations 2. selfishness of person 3. nobility in democracy elasticity vs ambiguity elasticity - deliberate looseness

- WWII abstraction

-Pandora’s box

-distinguish people from workers -more about articulation that revolution -unity/singularity of people +boxes with false bottoms ...

PUBLIC SPHERE Jürgen Habermas - The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere bourgeoisie - new class between two extremes

-18th century - emergence of public voice 1989 - translated to English 1992 -Nancy Frasier - rethink public sphere

-identities as umbrellas

-series of layers

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Habermas’ four assumptions: 1. It is possible for interlocutors in a public sphere to bracket status differentials and to deliberate as if they were social equals; the assumption, therefore, that societal equality is not a necessary condition for political democracy 2. The proliferation of a multiplicity of competing publics is necessarily a step away from, rather than toward, greater democracy, and that a single, comprehensive public sphere is always preferable to a nexus of multiple publics 3. Discourse in public spheres should be restricted to deliberation about the common good, and that the apprearance of private interests and private issues is always undesirable 4. A functioning democratic public sphere requires a sharp separation between civil society and the state

Public

Private

Nancy Fraser -Multiplicity of publics and their functions: “Multiple publics (of women*, racialized groups, nonheterosexuals...etc) always existed. These public spheres “function as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment...they also function as bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed toward wider publics.” These functions of counterpublics, to Fraser, are the origins of “emancipatory potential” that multiple publics offer to the public at large.”

Public

Private

Manfredo Tafuri - Architecture and Utopia -Design and Capitalist Development - new form of public elasticity - institutional specificity Jane Jacobs - Death and Life of Great American Cities -superblock is enemy NYC block - expanded 10-15 times - 200x600ft - changed notion of block Radburn, NJ - first “superblock” - plan died during depression - Granc Central Station - interior vs urban - Rockefeller Center - city within city Alan Colquhoun - large piece of real estate where each piece is individually planned - no consistency - enormous reserves - capital enables gain control over more land NYC vs Chicago grid checkerboard vs plaid plaid grids working together in different sizes Homer Hoyt - One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago +model made by every day boxes Chicago + Blackbelt -largest slum in North America -IIT had trouble attracting people -tried to close off, mies argued that it is not a city in another city - part of greater neighborhood -Central south side Chicago - as suburban off grid, curvy roads -neighborhood planning - isolated idea of public -mix series of publics into model that breaks neighborhood mold “LEAKY GRID” - create conformity without boundaries or walls

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LECTURE

MICHAEL KUBO MAS CONTEXT 4.14.15 | SAIC AIADO LECTURER BACKGROUND Michael Kubo is an architect, author, and Ph.D. Candidate in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture at MIT. In 2014 Kubo was Associate Curator for OfficeUS, the U.S. Pavilion at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice. He is co-editor of the forthcoming OfficeUS Atlas.

Kubo is co-director of pinkcomma gallery in Boston along with Chris Grimley and Mark Pasnik and a collaborator in over,under, an interdisciplinary practice with expertise in architecture, urban design, graphic identity, and publications. Kubo, Grimley, and Pasnik are co-authors of the forthcoming Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston (Monacelli Press, 2015), a history of concrete modernism in Boston between 1957 and 1976.

Kubo is a founding partner of the design practice Collective–LOK.

LECTURE NOTES COLLECTIVE thread Roxanne Williamson - American Architects and Mechanics of Fame + Architect Career Connections Charles Jencks - Modern Movements in Architecture - heroic - bureaucratic - origins of practice TAC - design own houses, but with common language - Six Moon Hill, Lexington - idealism pre-WWII - lack of anonymity - international extension

- University of Baghdad COLLABORATION PART 1- OFFICEUS - US pavilion at Venice Biennale - served as curator future office - archive - repository - international projects by US firms - how modernity was received in various international contexts - propagation of want and structure of office OFFICEUS Atlas - condensed collection of works

+ chart - offices and work on timeline + office organization structure - Kahn org., SOM, HOK + Architectural Record, July 1975 - Oil Rich MidEast

-economy, risk of work + Architects in Gulf States

-black market in Iraq shut down

-made investors stay away

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Charles Jencks - Modern Movements in Architecture, 1985

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LECTURE MICHAEL KUBO COLLABORATION PART 2 - PINK COMMA Boston not seen as a good place to work - newsstand - resurgence of newsprint - OverUnder - INFORM

-notion of legibility, intelligibility Boston World’s Fair 1976- model city HEROIC -attempt to revive period of architecture and design - Boston epicenter of modern architecture in North America - 1965/75 Boston master plan - last master plan

-demolition of significant portion - new Boston -currently under active neglect

-neglected buildings fail then blamed on architect + The New Brutalism -1954 - Alison and Peter Smithson - heroic period of modern architecture - suggests both success and failure Brutalist buildings are ducks La Tourette to Boston City Hall Goal is to document all the concrete buildings of Boston + In Praise of Ugly Buildings + Beauty of Concrete + Tough Love

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“‘Heroic’ presents the concrete structures that highlighted the era from the founding of the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 1957 to the re-opening of Quincy Market in 1976. These events bracket a remarkable period in which concrete was used as a building material in the transformation of Boston—creating what was eventually referred to as the “New Boston.”

COLLABORATION PART 3 COLLECTIVE- LOK - WOJR -PARA Project -OU (over,under) Ice House -blur familiar - estrange idea of house -screening

-opt out of Google street view precedents -Statue of Columbus - New York City

-scaffolding to make room

-domesticate statue in house setting -screenplay -Mirror Mirror, MoMA PS1

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U R BA N E N V I RO N M E N TS

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URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

W E E K LY A S S I G N M E N TS

A city is like an organism and is constantly adapting and changing. A building lives through several functions throughout its life. Often times, new construction is not necessary and there is already necessary infrastructure to use a building. This presents its own challenges when working with and around the given site, structure, and other technical elements.

In this assignment, we looked at using an existing floor to see how we would partition the space to make an apartment.

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Primary

Secondary

Tertiary

Quaternary

Movable doors make a room either formal or informal

The hallway becomes an extension of the kitchen through the shelving and finishes

Fireplace serves as a functional divider of the kitchen and dinette from the living room

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WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS

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mural magine as for ld be g with urface done earing for a acade artists, ithout .

Again, looking at how existing buildings can be adapted, we were challenged to only be able to change the facade. In this example, I saw the presence of artwork and imagined it spread across the whole building, where the building is just a canvas and is always changing.

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This was carried on to adapt the project of one of our peers.

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URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENTS

Is a train considered an architectural space?

How would an architect go about designing a moving room?

How does the architecture of the train meet the architecture of the station?

Andres Jimenez

HOW DOES ARCHITECTURE AGE?

This bike appears to have been abandoned, though it is still intact and secured to the post.

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Making use of otherwise unappealing building elements.

Bright red is a significant color to signify an entrance for Michigan Plaza and Cannon Design. For a person going to the building, the first red awning introduces a change of pace. Upon entering the building, a person has to slow or stop to go up stairs or escalator.

In the next phase to the Cannon Design office, one must stand in an elevator until the doors open and they are greeted with red paneled walls. At this point, the pace is reset.

Architectural Trends: Which ones will stay?

Which ones soon turn against the building?

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