Open Mic A conversation with Sandy Attia
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Made by students enrolled in the “Video, Media, and Architecture� class taught by professor Marco Brizzi at Kent State University in Florence in Spring 2016.
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Contents 4 Biography 6 Interview
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Biography
Sandy Attia and Matteo Scagnol partner as MoDus Architects in the year 2000 after having completed their graduate studies at Harvard University. The studio distinguishes itself by its heterogeneous approach to the field of architecture, combining the two different cultural and formative backgrounds into one platform for design ideas. Completed projects range in scale from infrastructure, to buildings, to objects within the buildings, and include public, institutional and private commissions. In recent years the practice has gone on to complete a number of critically acclaimed projects, including the Bressanone-Varna Ringroad, the Pre- School, Kindergarten and Family Center in Bolzano, and the Artist’s House and Atelier in Castelrotto—projects all located in the South Tyrol region of Italy. Subsequent to a series of national and international accolades, several new projects with a wider geographic reach are currently underway, marking a shift in their scope of work.
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OPEN MIC
AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
INTERVIEW WITH
Sandy Attia FLORENCE 2016
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[EDUCATION] What advice would you give American architecture students that are studying in Europe? When I was a senior for undergrad I went to Denmark for six months; that was my overseas experience. I did all the typical things. Every other weekend I was taking a trip to see as much as possible. I think that you want to get it all in, and this is a chance to do as much as possible. As a more mature person now I would try and do as little as possible and travel less. Be where you are at that point in time, sketch, go and see something. See it ten times, because there is so much new input. With seeing almost too much, it gets to be all the same. So I think one thing is to see a little bit less, but really go and look at the things with new eyes every time. That might be a sketch, writing something, or taking video. Also, do things alone. There is sense of insecurity of going to a different country, not knowing the language, or knowing how to communicate; it’s all new so you tend to go in groups. When I was in Denmark you could choose between living in a dorm with a bunch of people, or live with a family, so you are by yourself. I chose to live with a family, and I think with that I had a very different experience. I had to do everything by myself. So I did little mini trips. That was very interesting because you have to look at things just for yourself, and then you could share it afterwards. So I think that might be another piece of advice, go out and do something every week by yourself. That time is so precious; being able to study something. Nobody is saying hurry up you got to look at this and this. Just use your own mind and look at things on your own time.
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“Architecture is my passion. It was always on my mind, everything I did. Traveling, meeting my husband, and working together.” What aspects have you persevered from studying at Harvard in your practice in Italy? Design theory wise and/or style wise? While I think UVA and Harvard are on the same wavelength, they are very architect driven. Yale is more artsy, Princeton is more theoretical, and Cooper Union is more out in the left field. UVA and Harvard are just like hard core architecture. You get your history, theory, and you get your studio time with amazing professors. I couldn’t wait for some lectures; they were just amazing. I like that kind of range and depth, but it was just architecture. Of course architecture can mean a lot. I think that gave me an incredible backbone and kind of structure from which to work, because once you go out on your own that is the thing that you are going to miss. That kind of structured time and someone is always kind of hitting you on the head saying: “okay, where are you going? What’s your point? What’s your concept? What’s this and that?” That’s gold, it’s gold, and so I try and keep those little gold nuggets with me. A good education is just priceless.
AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
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House Terzer, Appiano, Italy (2009).
With regulations safety wise how would you say your style has changed since graduating from college? How would you say it has changed over the years you have been practicing? Well I think there is kind of one thing that needs to be said, is that I am really bad at bureaucracy and that kind of nitty gritty. It’s a kind of chosen ignorance, so that I can free up my mind a little bit. There is just a lot of baggage involved in architecture. I wouldn’t even know where to start. They tend to say that with being an architect that the design part is only 10%, so the other 90% is stuff you don’t want to be doing. But it is all important stuff. I think it’s that kind of creativity that is your strength, and you go through your practice trying to protect that. So try and hold on to that. It is a kind of freshness that you have when you are younger and it can go both ways. Not trying to reign that in and
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not having a structure to that. But at the same time you need to keep that alive because it is very easy to get bogged down. “I can’t do that because the coding says this. If I do this it will be real difficult to build. How can I manage to get that in the budget? I know they are not going to like that.” You know there are a thousand reasons not to do it. So you want to keep that alive and that tends to be what keeps you alive; you have to protect that. Knowing fire code issues, safety, and the bureaucracy of it, it is kind of a double edged sword. It can empower you because you can argue your case. It can also take away that kind of freshness. It’s a kind of balancing game and you have to work at it. Would you say the safety regulations are hard on the economic problems in terms of how much you could spend with your clients you work with? What would you say is more difficult to
AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
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Psychiatric Center and Sheltered Housing, Bolzano, Italy, 2014 (photo Oskar DaRiz).
work with? In terms of keeping you design the way you want.? I think that tends to go away with the more you know about the safety codes. The less it becomes, “oh gosh I have to that and that.” You already know you have to keep certain things in mind. That just kind of gets ingrained in you and it helps you along in your design process. I don’t think it is very useful to think of it as a constant head butting. Oh I want to do this design, but safety code! You need to be able to know enough, to have the confidence that it can work, on budget, on time. It can be beautiful. You need to have that confidence. So it’s better not to see it in conflict, psychologically it is better to not see it in conflict.. When you were a student around our age what were you doing and thinking that got you ready and steered you to where you are today??
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Nothing. I’m not a programming person. I don’t have a strategy. That’s the worst question to ask me. I can’t give you good advice in this department. Everything is a kind of series of little happy accidents that occur, and you have to make the most of it. Italy has the highest density of architects. When I told my dad I’m moving to Italy. He said: “what why would you do that? It just makes no sense whatsoever. There are so many unemployed, starving, deadbeat architects. Why would you move into that?” So I don’t have a good answer to that. You know architecture is my passion, so everything I did, I had that in mind. Traveling, meeting my husband, and working together. It is just the whole package, but you just have to believe that anything can happen. It sounds like your drive got you where you are today. Yeah, you know, it is also the people you meet. People you meet and then your path kind of takes you a different way. I think a lot of where I am today has a
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AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
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Artist Residence and Atelier, Castelrotto, Italy, 2013 (photo Hannes Meraner).
lot to do with my husband because we work together. I couldn’t imagine actually practicing alone. I think it is very helpful to have two minds. We have two very different kind of approaches, but we are on the same wavelength and that really helps because it gives you a broader perspective. So the people you are surrounded by, who are working with you are really crucial because architecture is not a one man show by any means. So you need to have people around you. I have this thing where they fall into two categories of people. They are like sandpaper or not; you try to avoid the sandpaper people. The things you want to do and the people you want to be grouped together with get the best out of the project. It sounds really simplistic, but it’s really important to have a good team. [FIRM] After graduation what types of challenges did you face opening up your own firm? Especially
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AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
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Lappago Mountain Refuge, Selva dei Molini, Italy, 2016 (photo: Leonhard Angerer).
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since you are in Italy. I graduated and Matteo won a fellowship (Italian Fulbright at an American academy). So we had this nine month cushion period where we could do competitions and we didn’t have to worry about anything else. We just poured ourselves into that, and that breathing period really helped because we started to win a few prizes and that got the momentum going. I think in the American culture going to school I had a lot of student debt, and it is just this kind of thing when you graduate that you go to grad school, get you doctorate or not, it is whatever. Then you finish and you go work. You go to work and earn money and do what you’ve been educated to do. You go apply for jobs and stuff like that. I didn’t do that. That was a real shock for many, my parents for example said, “Hello, you have student loans. I know you’ve been working all this way during undergrad and graduate school. Now it’s time to get a job.” However, that is not an easy decision. I just kind of took it and thought I’ll see how it goes. It wasn’t easy, it was a long road before we start getting work, winning a competition and stuff like that. That was like a three year period and that is a lot of lost competitions. That’s a lot of student debt that’s waiting to be paid off. You just have to believe that the line that you have chosen is going to take you where you want to go. That’s the only thing that I can say. You know that’s not saying that when you get out of college you’ll go work for an office and do amazing work also, having great experiences. I mean everybody kind of finds their own path, and that path can of course always change. So like I said I’m not the best case scenario of giving you a good recipe, because my recipe is not foolproof.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
“You just have to believe that the line you have chosen is going to take you where you want to go.” How does your company use media, video, and articles to display your work to potential clients and in competitions? I think in Italy (I don’t think this is a good thing) there are two parallel roads. One is your professional life and one is your academic life: they hardly touch. They might touch now because I’m here and I have contact with you guys and stuff like that. But unfortunately it is very difficult to reconcile the two. I think that it’s actually a real downfall of the Italian system. Of course in other countries it is similar in sense that it is difficult to put the two together. I mean in the states academia is much more demanding in a sense that it is kind of a full time job. It is very difficult to have a practice and also teach. Whereas in Italy a lot of people have a practice and teach on the side, so it is kind of a different balance. Big generalizations here. What I found is that I like to have a lot of different inputs and outputs. It helps with ideas. It keeps me going. So I like to pause sometimes on certain subjects and write about them, formulate them into a project and do interdisciplinary work. Just kind
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Subsidiary Heating Plant, Milland, Italy, 2014 (photo: Gänther Wett).
AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
of meeting up with people outside of my field because I think that really gives you an incredible depth. Different ideas always help you keep your thoughts going in a different direction. It can be really inspirational. That is something for me that is important. Also because I live in a small town, I like the city. I like to travel. I like to meet different people from different walks of life. It is part of my DNA; I have to do that. I can’t stay in my 20,000 person town in the valley where everyone speaks German. It’s a sad community. In terms of our communication, we are really bad in that department. We are a ten person office and we would like to grow. There is a certain point where there is a plateau, let’s call it a plateau, when you kind of want to move up to the next level you have to have another level of professionalism—where you have your marketing person. It is kind of a bigger apparatus, and it is not that easy to do that. I’m not quite sure how that is going to happen. When we redid our website a couple of years ago, that in itself was a huge endeavor. You think: well, yeah, everybody has a website. But it was a huge project. Every little step has a lot of grunt work behind it. The people who are doing it are: me, Matteo, and the few people in our office. You need to have a really steady income in your office that allows that kind of cushion for you to grow. You kind of have to have a strategy because it doesn’t just happen by chance. In the past year or two years we are kind of feeling that out. It seems that each worker in your firm has an individualistic style for their work, how does that freedom and personal responsibility translate into results? This is a comment we get a lot actually, with our projects looking different from one to the other. I think
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Farmhouse Estate, Renon, Italy, 2012 (photo: Oskar DaRiz).
that there is just a thing that we have. You sit down on a project and there is not just one answer. A lot of different ideas come in and the project kind of takes its own road. In terms of the people in the office, I will describe in basic terms. Everybody follows the project and they are responsible for everything in that project. They will come to all the meetings, responsible for all the deadlines, and each project has their reference person in the office. So if someone new walks through the door and thinks they can just hide in the corner and work on a few drawings that is just not the case. “Oh you’re new? Take is big chuck of responsibility.” If the project is the right project you get to see all the phases. You get to do the dirty work, the nice work, meet clients, balance the budget, go to the job site, excreta. It is not a very hierarchical office. .
AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
[DESIGN IDEAS] What are the main goals that you want to achieve through your architectural work? Why are these concepts important to you? I think a project has to do it all. It just has to do it all and it has to be functional. It has to say something. When you’re constructing something you’re making a mark and that mark has to say something. You can decide that you want it to fade into the background or be completely monadic with the context and stuff like that. But you have to have a very clear idea of how to position that project. What is the architecture response to that one specific project? Why is that important? It is important because the road is really long. From first the idea to the project getting built. You have to fight to keep it there. There are a lot of things like fire safety code and regulations to the client having a change in heart, economic downturn, all the approvals; I mean there are a lot of people involved. It is a long process. You have to be extremely focused in keeping the core values of that project alive. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t change, or that the project is set in stone and you’re not going to change it. You have to be able to know when to give and not to give; how to compromise. A lot of times that process can actually improve a project. Sometimes you look back and say thank god that didn’t get built. So there is this process that has actually helped the project. It’s important to keep a certain distance from a project and watch it grow. As that project is growing and maturing and anchoring itself into a certain context (political, social, economic, functional, and whatever it is) make sure it is growing in the right direction. A project can be really fragile and so you have to nurture it. You have to nurture it, and whatever it takes you have to do it. You have to be able to be strong enough to do
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“A project can be really fragile and so you have to nurture it. You have to nurture it, and whatever it takes you have to do it. You have to be able to be strong enough to do one change but to keep the core of the project intact. It’s not easy.” 24
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AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
one change but to keep the core of the project intact. It’s not easy. That is why I think in studio class you say “this is my concept” and “I’m trying to develop my concept.” But that concept it is not fixed it can change. In an interview about the house you designed for artist Hubert Kostner, you mentioned that your work takes a particular interest in the idea of twins and the idea of disjointed unison. What drives this interest and if it expands beyond buildings and form to a symbiotic relationship between people and the space they inhabit? Our central heating plant is an example of where there are two things put together. Kind of two different things with the skaters and structure, and understanding how to collapse them together. That happened because there was a former skate park on that site. The client wanted to get these skaters out of here and do this new project. This is the site and that’s the end of the story. But we found that a building can do more than one thing, and doing that more than one thing makes it possible to become more interactive with its context and with the people using it. Not that oneness, but that multiplicity is something that we try to find—a plus value to a project. Also, architecturally it gives you more material to work with. It is a big interest of ours. Our work on schools is where it has come out in the most explicit way because we have built a lot of schools and gone through the processes. We have seen how difficult it is for an architectural world and educational world to find common ground. We found that it doesn’t have to be that way. It is just really important to be on the same page for a school; to be able to endure with time, because as soon as you let your baby go someone else is going to come live in it. We have seen over four or
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five years of research traveling around our region to other projects (not ours) visiting other schools. Some of them were high end schools and modern and you see them and say, “Oh wow, they are amazing,� then when you interview (focus groups) with the teachers, parents, and even sometimes the custodians and found that even after two or three years they absolutely hate the school. It looks really anonymous on the inside. There is some kind of gap that has happened along the way in the process of building the school. That gap was exactly what I was interested in studying with this educational process. I found that it is just a huge shame. It is a huge financial investment that the government makes. It is a place where kids and teachers spend so much time. If you guys think about how much time you spend in school. It is a crazy amount of time and the
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Farmhouse Estate, Renon, Italy, 2012 (photo: Oskar DaRiz).
conditions in which you work actually affects the way you learn. It will be with you forever. So it became kind of an obsession, this research topic, and it is kind of an ongoing thing. This foundation in Torino is donating a school; it is the first time that I have been on the other side of it where I am helping to prepare the competition brief. So I’ve been accompanying this school, together with this professor, about how they want to change and what they want their future building to do. It is just really interesting. I find it very fascinating. . Your response to that question might flow into this question I want to ask. It’s about something your website actually talks about where it say that you have basically two ideas I think you talked about this earlier; about you and your
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husband where you have two ideas and they come together and they make one is that kind of along the lines of your overall philosophy? I think… You know I had this professor he would laugh if he heard me quoting him. I had this professor at the University of Virginia, called W.G. Clark. He told me once, he looked at me and said; you know you need two ideas, one’s just not going to do it. I said but that’s my idea! I think it was second year studio and it sounds like such a banal thing to say, but it is actually when ideas collide that something interesting can happen. It makes you also be a little less stigmatic; and anyways we live in times where the one idea does not exists anymore. Is there one truth, one idea, one response, one solution? No, it is just completely foreign to us, especially your guises generation. I think it’s, you know that kind of generation a couple generations ago that I read architecture genius star, I think it’s very difficult you know this fight we still have famous architects you know, but I think it’s very difficult for it to… it seems to be out of place out of time, but of course we think of Luis Kahn and certain architects there is this kind of timelessness that work has, but I don’t think it’s good to have one idea because they have a very broad vision a very bold kind of architect it one line it’s still trying to say something it’s not going to stand the test of time. What do you think what would you say you bring to the table perhaps that... What is the difference is it project specific or overall philosophical. Between your husband and yourself or other people in your firm? We are very different like most people are and I think I’m a little bit more unrealistic person, so I might say something and he might go No! But that kind of not
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realistic aspect can be really stimulating, but like you said I’m not so … I’m not that grounded, he seems to be more grounded, but that’s a personal thing. I think what’s important is that you know I was reading a book on Charles and Ray Eames. This is question that actually there is someone else that wants to interview us about you know that couples working together in offices and stuff like that, and Eames was saying you know ... Ray Eames was saying that was difficult because how do you answer that because your work ethic, what you do is so intense and so maybe what one person does it is already inside the head of another person and so it’s that kind of symbiosis that’s difficult to separate, but I think it’s more useful to take; In our case we are a husband and wife team, but and in a hundred other cases they are not a husband and wife team. It’s just very helpful because architecture you know has to do a lot of things. You know as architects we have to know a lot of things. We aren’t good at one thing. We are kinda a jack of all trades, but we don’t have a … we aren’t doing a P.H.D. kind of studying studying a certain kind of you know subject, and that lack of focus is actually our strength. So that means though to work with more ideas it’s helpful to work with people that who are not sandpaper people. You know there’s that kind of energy; It’s that architecture meets the ground okay, and what that fertile ground and what that fertile ground is to you and to you is different, but you need to keep that alive because there is a lot of things outside of it that you know are kind of driving it down and are very technical and engineering, and you know especially in Italy it’s very difficult to keep that alive.
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“I’m working all the time and juggling kids, and I think it’s important to me that my kids see that you can do it all. You know, you’re trying to get educated as much as the next person. So that’s what you contribute to society . You’re a mother, you’re 30
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an engineer, you’re a philosopher, you’re all those things, and I think that’s really important and that’s what I would like to bring toward to the next generation..” AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
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Artist Residence and Atelier, Castelrotto, Italy, 2013 (photo: Hannes Meraner).
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After doing research, it was said that you draw inspiration from your clients. What are the typical questions/characteristics you like to obtain from your clients? And how do these characteristics influence your design? I’m a background person. I don’t like to be in the front line. But you know architecture is very much about stories and it is very much about people. And for architecture to happen you need people to connect. It’s difficult to have a good project if you don’t have a good client. If you have a good relationship with your client it can really make or break your project. We have had a few projects where we just haven’t managed to get that relationship, unfortunately. Every project is its own kind of story. For the mountain refuge project, I followed the construction a lot less, and Matteo was there once or twice a week To get to the job site you had to walk, you had to hike. All the people working you’re almost at 3,000 meters and at 3,000 meters, and all the people working on the construction site were living there six days a week. Then they would go down on Sundays and stay with their families, and then they would come back. Matteo had this ritual where, you know, you go and there’s no cell phone connection okay, no cell phone connection. It was like a cathartic experience. So you have to hike for a hour to get to the job site , you have no cell phone contact, so you don’t have people *nah nah nah* and you’re with a group of people whose one mission is to build this lodge, up in the mountains, you know in pretty harsh conditions. I think that is a special bond that he made with them and I think that it is once in a lifetime experience.
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Artist Residence and Atelier, Castelrotto, Italy, 2013 (photo: Hannes Meraner).
[PERSONAL / PHILOSOPHICAL] I have a personal question for you, In 2014 you were nominated for the ArcVision Women and Architecture prize as one of 23 female finalists selected for your contribution to positive change in the field of architecture. What kind of positive changes would you like to make for this generation of women in architecture, or can you comment on how you view our role in the field now has changed? Now that’s becoming more popular for women to become architects than it was 50 years ago. I would have a lot to say about this topic, but you know in … What’s the percentage male to female in your year?
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It’s almost 50/50 I feel like. Because my class was more women than men, and that was the general trade when I graduated; a lot of women were in architecture it’s not like...It wasn’t something new like that. I found, looking at colleagues as time went on, that a lot of women start having families and stop working or took time out and it was difficult to get back into the field. All that regular stuff you hear about all the time, and I think in architecture it’s tough because it’s not a part time job even if you have part time hours it’s really tough. It’s changed, we have women like Sejima, Zaha Hadid, and a lot of other women who aren’t as well known and who are in the field and are practicing. I don’t see that much of a distinction, but I’m sure there is. I think that it’s important for women to be on the
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Kofler-Neumair House, Caldaro, Italy, 2012.
construction site. To get that experience on the construction site is really important. You know because I think there’s still that… it’s a construction site, all the people on the construction site are men: you don’t really have women. People who are soldering together or waterproofing sheets or anything, they tend to all be men, but what you can do is just... what can you do? t’s important to put yourself out there. I think it’s important also to realize that architecture has a… of course for me architecture is about building. That’s really important to me, and what I have to contribute. But of course there are a lot of women in architecture and who are academics and who write books, lecture, go to conferences, and stuff like that. I don’t know, it’s a whole conversation; it’s something to keep in mind and of course it’s not only architecture,
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it’s a working mom and such. You know I have two kids. So, that conversation comes a bit too early for you guys. As future dads it’s important to know that you know if women have… I have a friend she’s a family psychiatrist. She lives in Dubai. She’s my closest friend , because in the culture that I live in there’s this practice where women have children and they can take three years off then go back into the workforce. So there are a lot of mommies that aren’t working and I’m the kind of American where [I’m] working all the time and juggling kids, and I think it’s important to me that my kids see that you can do it all. You know, you’re trying to get educated as much as the next person. So that’s what you contribute to society . You’re a mother, you’re an engineer, you’re a philosopher, you’re all those things, and I think that’s really important and that’s what I would like to bring toward to the next generation.
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Kofler-Neumair House, Caldaro, Italy, 2012.
Many architects have a specific definition or idea behind what they think architecture is, or at least, is supposed to be. How would you describe what you believe architecture is? Oh my goodness *laugh* What’s your answer? What’s my answer? Yeah! Well I think my answer is going to be formed down the road. You know, I’m trying to be a sponge now… I’m still sponging it You’re still sponging it… I mean one of the reasons why I forwarded that question...
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Okay, what do I think architecture is… in broad terms I think it’s a cultural and social act. So it’s not a personal gesture, it’s a responsibility that you hold when you build something. You are cutting into the ground, you’re cutting off someone’s view, you’re reframing a view. You’re doing something that is extremely violent in a way. So there is responsibility that goes with that. You know it’s funny, I taught this class last semester at the University of Trento. A lot of these exams are oral exams, so you have your studio final review then you have this exam which is basically a one on one interview: question and answer. So we didn’t know what we are supposed to ask. Our studio class was not about theory. We didn’t have many readings or stuff like that. We had like 80 students so like on the 15th student we started asking questions like: why did you become an architect? It’s funny because a lot of students said because it’s creative and I want to be able to express myself… it’s my form of expression. I disagree with that and I think at this point in time of course that’s a natural answer, but I don’t see it as first and foremost a form of personal expression. Of course if you look at our work and you look at the work of architects, you can interpret it that way, but I think it’s really important that you know it’s a responsibility that you have to make your mark on the ground, changing it, making a place where you can live, work, and breathe, and that’s actually very serious. Architecture is a cultural and social act. I think that’s important for me personally. I think people have different opinions on it. I think some people think architecture represents itself subliminally.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
Do you mind then if i ask you another small question? No. Would that leave room for personal views, or about how ideas fill space or how it should feel? Because you said you’re trying to be responsible for the people who are going to inhabit that? We are not a service you know what I mean? This you see a lot in clients. I’m going to say something that’s gonna be kinda annoying to you guys, but i taught for two years at University of Michigan and I was the teacher, not the student of course. As a student you pay for your education, and so your professor, owes it to you. They are giving you a service that you pay for, right? It’s actually a very cultural thing that’s specific to the states. A lot of professors go there that are like “What is this? You can’t talk to me like this! I’m not offering a service, I’m not answering a supply and demand kind of chain,” you know? It’s not a business transaction where you can fill in my happy face and unhappy face. I’m sharing also some kind of body of knowledge of culture. So I think that it’s difficult because a lot of times you’re on student loans. This professor comes late he’s rude he’s this that. “I’m not paying for this.” And with an architect it’s the same thing. So it’s more of a dialog, would you say? Yeah it’s more of a dialog, but you know some clients say, “I have these two rooms I need to put a bathroom here and I don’t have enough light, can you solve this for me?” “Yeah, I can solve it for you.” Put the bathroom in the middle and open two windows. But I can’t do that, I’m
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Kindergarten and Daycare Center, Bressanone, Italy (photo: Orsenigo Chemollo).
AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
an architect. So I think about what it means when you move from one door to another. The threshold between the two. You have that whole world that you offer that goes outside of the service. It’s no longer a service, you’re not just giving a solution to a problem, so for example in their personal house I have heard some people say: “Don’t tell me how to live; I’ll tell you how I live and then you can build it, according to how I live.” That’s the service-provider mentality. Going back to this question, it’s important how people use space and you need to understand that, but once you have that knowledge you go back, you interpret it, you resee it… it goes through a hole different set of prophases. And then maybe what comes out is just like what are you talking about. “I asked for this and you give me this, you didn’t solve my problem.” So, I think that’s really important to keep in mind because a lot of our profession is geared towards you offering a service. There are people [who don’t like the risk]. The structure has to be stable, it has to be earthquake proof. There are a lot of people-problems you need to solve, but architecture is not just those problems. It’s more than that. That is all these things that you’re learning now: travelling, looking, seeing, and all those things. It’s something a little less tangible. It’s the only thing we have as architects; it’s our patrimony. So someone may try to take that away from you, which they are going to try to do left, right, and center. That’s your patrimony because you know the person next to you can solve all those same problems. It’s the same codes, it the same problem to solve. That personal expression, I want to take that out. Of course everybody has a form of expression and what you do is a form of expression, but
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that patrimony of meticulous thought, that is not not just straightforward solving a problem, is all we have as architects. *laughs* So its.. You’ve got to save that; it’s precious. Many argue that technology has caused architectural design to change for the worse. Being part of a generation that grew up submersed in technology, do you believe that design will suffer from a generation such as ours? No, but I’m following a kind of participatory design. I was [at a school] for the whole day, and anybody could ask me, the architect who’s kind of accompanying them, outside of this more formalized process. They could just come to me with whatever they wanted to say. And this one girl says: “we are like magnets to technology, it’s something that we are just so attracted to, and you can’t take that away from us. So you need to take that into consideration when you build the school.” *laughs* But it’s something that… because, in this school you’re not allowed to take your cell phone of course, you’re not allowed to bring your Ipad if you have an Ipad. It’s “no, no, no, no,” and she was just saying, “It’s against our nature; we are drawn to it. You have to help us. It should be part of school.” So I think that friction will always be there. If you look at the history of architecture there is always some technology that comes in, and there’s this euphoric response to it. Use of iron or something: a euphoric response and some people are like, “no.” Like Bruno Taut said that glass is like the future and bricks are just so passe and old-fashioned. He really put them down. I think the real struggle with technology is how fast
OPEN MIC
AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY ATTIA
it changes. In architecture, [it] is a slower moving body, and so that fast-pacedness is something that’s a little off step, but I think technology offers a whole new world where you can be high tech, low tech, or incorporate it at certain times. I think, for example back to the school project, we tend to be low tech because of the maintenance of it. If you have everything super automated, you need to have people who are custodians of the building that know how to use it, and keep pace with it. If you don’t have those people as clients, it doesn’t make sense to put in a Ferrari, and then it is being used as a Fiat, and that Ferrari is going to be a dinosaur soon. With technology you have to measure it out to be the right doses and not passe, so no one can say, “No.”
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This interview with Sandy Attia was focused upon her growth as an architect, design process, research, and the globalization of architecture. It was a collaborative effort among students of the Video, Media, and Architecture course at Kent State University Florence. Guest lecturers were brought in from all over Europe for a Spring lecture series and students were tasked to create an interview before each of these lectures. After analyzing numerous interviews with other architects, students researched and explored the work of the visiting lecturers. Questions were then devised by each student, and these questions were analyzed based upon their thematic similarity and their relevance to the work of each lecturer. The most appropriate questions were chosen for each interview, and the specific students who created these questions then were charged with interviewing our guests, using the chosen questions as a base and posing any other questions that flowed with the interview.