The China Connection

The China Connection

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sk Scott W. Killinger (B.Arch. ’61) why he decided to become an architect and the internationally recognized urban designer will tell you that it all began with the loud barking of a cute little collie named “Lady.”

After more than 40 years as a global master-builder whose projects have included everything from new housing developments in China to a brand-new university campus in the Republic of the Congo, Killinger still has a vivid memory of the moment when Lady sent up her frantic warning.

It happened around 9:30 on a stormy evening in May of 1953 ... when the frisky, fun-loving dog suddenly appeared at the back door of the Killinger home in tiny Hebron (1950s population: 2,000).

“It was a rainy, windy night,” says Killinger today, “and our family had just gone to bed. And then all at once Lady showed up on the back porch, barking hysterically and wanting to come inside.

“That was highly unusual behavior for Lady; she’d never done that before. Anyway, it woke my dad up, and he got out of bed to let her in. She ran into the house, still barking, and then a moment later we heard an ominous sound. It was like the roaring of a freight train – and it was headed straight toward us.”

Fully awake now, the startled members of the Killinger family hurried to the back door, where they made a frightening discovery.

The “freight train” was actually a monster tornado, and it was about to rip the town of Hebron apart. As if to underline the danger, all the windows in the Killinger household suddenly began to explode.

Stunned, the family ran for cover. Led by the valiant Lady, the five Killingers (Scott has two brothers) raced toward the basement.

And they made it just in time; five seconds later, the entire house was swaying as if it were being flung about by a giant’s hand.

Huddled in the basement, the terrified family listened to the sound of the roof departing in a blizzard of flying shingles.

For globe-trotting architect Scott Killinger, designing urban communities in China is a thrilling challenge that requires him to use all the skills he’s developed during a 40-year career as a master-builder in this country and abroad. A passionate craftsman who loves the complexity involved in building new projects around the world, Killinger recently launched a semester-long study program for UNL architecture students in the Chinese city of Tianjin. His remarkably ambitious goal: to help future architects – both American and Chinese – become better at their craft by learning together about each other’s history and culture.

By Tom Nugent

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“It was unlike anything we’d ever experienced before,” Killinger recalls today, “and the sound of a tornado is a sound that never leaves your head. We stayed in that basement for at least an hour, and when we finally got up the nerve to come out, we discovered that the town had been flattened and my high school had been blown away!”

The destruction wreaked by the tornado of May 9, 1953 – in which four people were killed and two-thirds of the town’s buildings were wrecked, according to local news reports of the day – is still the stuff of legend in Hebron, located in southeastern Nebraska about 75 miles from Lincoln.

But the incident was even more memorable for Scott Killinger, who was then 14 years old, because of the way it eventually inspired him to study architecture at UNL. “My father [Harold Killinger] was a local banker, and he was also serving on the Hebron school board,” explains the 70-year-old architect/urban designer today, which meant that he wound up closely watching the architect as he was planning the new high school.

“Well, I got interested in the process, and I started watching what he was doing. I went to meetings where he would talk to the members of the

school board about the project, and I watched him do some drawings. I saw how he had the ability to sketch an idea on paper, and to imagine how a finished building would look.”

Killinger remembers being fascinated by the architect’s skills and his knack for making design concepts come alive on the page. “When the new high school was finished, I could hardly believe my eyes,” he remembers. “The architect had built a courtyard in the center of the structure, in order to bring sunlight into the interior classrooms, and I thought that was a great idea.

“He explained to me that the challenge of architecture is to ‘figure it out’ – to use your skills and your knowledge to create a structure from scratch and to make it both functional and beautiful,” Killinger said. “I was intrigued by that, and I decided right then that I was going to become an architect some day. That was more than 50 years ago ... but I still get a thrill out of solving the puzzles and ‘figuring out’ the solutions that are the real essence of architecture.”

He pauses for a moment. Then, with a smile of nostalgia: “Unfortunately, our town got beat up pretty bad that night. But for me, that incident was also the beginning of a wonderful career. In a way, it was a little bit like “The Wizard of Oz” ... like Dorothy being lifted out of her little town and being carried off into a fascinating new world of opportunities and possibilities.

“I’ve had a very rewarding career in architecture, partly because of what happened in Hebron that night ... and so it’s very satisfying, these days, to be able to help some of our contemporary UNL architecture students to broaden their horizons by studying design with their fellow students in China.”

Chian Mobile

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‘FIGURING IT OUT’ – AT A CROWDED R ACETR ACK IN SINGAPORE fter more than four decades of A designing residential projects, sports facilities, campus master plans, waterfront

Killinger office staff in Beijing, China

development enterprises and even entire towns and large cities, Scott Killinger says he’s “having more fun than ever” as an international architecture guru who specializes in planning new housing and commercial buildings in the rapidly expanding world of contemporary China.

A former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Design, and the winner of numerous regional design awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the tireless Killinger six years ago launched (along with a savvy Chinese partner) the now-flourishing Kuang Xing Design International architectural firm in Beijing.

With 45 on-site employees in the Chinese capital – and with a client list that includes some of the country’s largest companies and local governments – Kuang Xing today manages more than 30 major architectural and urban design projects throughout southern and eastern China.

A former managing partner at several of Philadelphia’s best-known architecture firms, Killinger has spent most of his long career working in the City of Brotherly Love.

But his professional travels have often taken him far from Pennsylvania ... to places as remote as Caracas (where he designed an entire university campus) and Singapore (he built the country’s largest racetrack) and even Saudi Arabia (his team of designerplanners put together 13 different residential projects for energy giant ARAMCO at Dhahran in the Arabian desert).

Armed with master’s degrees in architecture and city planning from the University of Pennsylvania, Killinger long ago established himself as an architect with an uncanny talent for assembling urban projects that require the designer to smoothly coordinate the interactions of dozens of different people ... including building contractors, government regulators, venture capitalists and potential residents, to name but a few.

Instead of being intimidated by so much buzzing complexity, however, Killinger positively thrives on it.

“I think the most important thing you need to be able to do as an architect is to figure out solutions to complex problems,” he said the other day over a cup of steaming coffee in downtown Philadelphia.

“In a very real way, designing and planning a building – or even a community – is like putting together an enormous jigsaw puzzle. When the puzzle

is finished it must have assembled the pieces in a way that both inspires and delights the occupants.

“When students ask me what we do as architects, I like to tell them: ‘We figure it out!’ Sure, you need drawing skills, analytical design skills – those are the basics, after all. But you soon discover, especially in urban architecture, that the key to everything is your ability to think your way through problems, slowly and carefully and most of all, creatively.”

Asked for an example of how such “creative thinking” can solve architectural problems, the eminence grise of urban planning described a particularly vexing obstacle he faced in masterminding the design of the huge Singapore Turf Club Racetrack, back in 1995.

“That was an enormous enterprise,” he says of the project today, “and it required us to stable up to 2,400 racehorses at a time. We solved that problem by building multi-story stables with elevators and ramps that connected the upper floors with the ground, and that approach worked out very well. By the way, we needed to write the fire code that went with this idea.

“But then we got stuck on another obstacle for a while. The racetrack was designed to draw as many as 70,000 fans on a big racing day ... and we had to let those fans watch everything – including the movement of the horses from the stables to the ‘parade ring,’ and then out to the track, itself. At the same time, however, we had to make sure that the horses would never come into contact with the fans, in order to prevent injuries and so on.

“This was a huge problem for a while. But eventually my colleagues and I came up with the perfect solution. We built a 50-yard-long glass tube or passageway between the parade ring and the track through the grandstand.

The tube was designed so that everybody in the grandstand could get a great close-up view of the horses as they walked to the track surface, but without the danger of being run over by them!

“The glass tube-approach worked out very well, and they’ve never had a problem with it. For an architect, finding the solution to that kind of problem is enormously gratifying.”

Then, with a laugh of pure delight: “See what I mean about ‘figuring it out?’ Sooner or later, most architectural challenges will require you to come up with a uniquely creative solution – and that’s precisely what I love most about this profession.”

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GR APPLING WITH THE NUANCES OF CHINESE CULTURE

Ground breaking Ceremony at Guilin, China

orn and raised in Hebron, Scott B Killinger signed on as an architecture student at UNL back in the fall of 1956 –

and soon discovered that most of his professors were also “problem-solvers” who believed that finding creative solutions was the key to the craft.

“I was pretty lucky because I wound up with many gifted teachers including Dale Gibbs and Patrick Horsbrugh as mentors,” he recalls today. “At one point Patrick presented us with a challenge that required us to ‘figure it out’ in a big way.

“He asked us to choose one of three environments – the Arctic Circle, or a tropical rain forest, or a desert environment – and then figure out the best kind of housing structure that could be built there.

Well, I chose the rain forest ... and I ended up designing a series of housing units that were built at the top of the trees. That was very ‘mind-stretching’ to imagine the life of the people who would inhabit those structures.

“I remember spending many late nights in the architecture building with my never-go-to-bed classmates, sitting over our drawing boards – with [jazzman] Dave Brubeck playing in the background – while we drank endless cups of coffee and tried to figure out how to build the perfect housing structure for that kind of environment.”

After earning his UNL architecture degree in 1961, Killinger worked briefly in New York, then settled in Philadelphia and soon began to specialize in the kind of architecture and urban design work that has lately taken him deep into the world of China’s burgeoning cities. As a founding partner of the rapidly expanding Kuang Xing design firm in Beijing, he’s spent the past six years getting a hawk’s-eye view of the amazing transformation that is now overtaking all of Chinese society.

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“China is truly a remarkable place,” he says with a note of awe in his voice. “I go back there six or seven times each year, and I work there for weeks at a stretch.

Everywhere you look, these days, you see skyscrapers and new cities springing up like mushrooms. The Chinese are going to have to house more than 300 million people in the next 15 or 20 years – as the rural farmers increasingly move into the cities – and meeting that immense need is going to be a major theme in international architecture during the next few decades.

“The challenges you face in building housing or commercial structures in China are truly profound,” says the design guru with a shake of his grizzled head. “I’m very fortunate to have a skilled Chinese partner, because I’ve given up the idea that I will ever fully understand all the nuances and subtleties of Chinese culture.

“What I try to do is to learn as much as I can about the people for whom I’m building new housing units or office space or waterfront developments. And that’s a wonderfully challenging enterprise, believe me. But I also thinks it’s vitally important – because we’re now entering a new, global world of commerce, and the Chinese are going to play a huge part in that. And there’s no doubt that we need to begin learning much more about them, if we’re going to keep up.”

Intent on spreading the gospel about new business and architectural opportunities in China, Killinger last year sponsored nine UNL students in the country’s third-largest city, Tianjin. Here they studied local building practices and local culture for a semester with their Chinese counterparts in the architecture department at Tianjin University.

“I think all of the UNL students who participated came away dazzled by the

experience,” he says today. “Day after day for two solid months, they were working side by side with Chinese students who were just as interested in local architectural and cultural issues as they were. To see the fascinating blog of their experience, go to http://tianjinstudyabroad.blogspot.com “I think that kind of interaction will be absolutely essential for success in the world of architecture in the years ahead,” he says.

“As a former UNL student who feels very grateful about the education he got there, I’m delighted to be part of a [nowpermanent] program that encourages such cultural bridge-building.”

Like Killinger, UNL Associate Dean of Architecture Mark Hoistad is convinced that programs such as the one in Tianjin are now an essential part of education in his field. Says Hoistad: “The work Scott Killinger is doing in China with our students is enormously helpful to them, and we’re very excited about the urban design program he’s created there. Scott is a highly accomplished architect in his own right, but with a special area of expertise in this kind of international urban design.

“We’ve sponsored a similar program in London since the 1960s, and it’s a big step forward to expand our reach to Asia.

Thanks to Scott – who also sponsors a chair in urban design at UNL, by the way – we’re now able to extend our reach to Beijing and beyond.”

Having recently turned 70 (“It’s only a number – doesn’t bother me in the least!”), and having raised three sons who are now busy with professional careers of their own (his wife Mary, an accomplished attorney, just retired as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia area), the veteran designer says he’s now working harder than ever, while also indulging himself whenever possible in two other great passions ... playing classical organ music and designing stage sets for a local community theater.

“I feel very privileged to be able to work on the cutting edge between the American and Chinese cultures,” Killinger will tell you with a cheerful grin. “And I must say that I’m a very hopeful man. I really believe – in spite of all the problems we now face – that we’re going to be able to find solutions and build a new world full of opportunities for all who share it.”

And how will we find those solutions, exactly?

It’s actually very simple, says Scott Killinger: “We’re gonna sit down with a pencil and paper and figure them out!” n

Waterfront Development Project on Haihe River in Tianjin, China

Killinger fishing with Carmoran Birds.

UNL Architecture Student Honed Skills in ChinA or recent UNL graduate Allison F. Struck (M.Arch. ’08), studying architecture in F China with Scott Killinger was “an amazing experience” that required her to wrestle with both the demands of her craft and the “culture shock” triggered by foreign travel.

Allison F. Struck, ’08

“It was overwhelming at first,” says Struck, who’s now working fulltime as an architect at the highly regarded firm of Perkins & Will in Minneapolis. “When you first arrive in China, everything seems extremely foreign. The language is difficult, and understanding the nuances of Chinese culture can be hard for Westerners.

“But I was very fortunate to be working with Scott during part of my time there. He’s a great guy, and he has a lot of passion about what he does. He was extremely generous with his time, and he helped me figure out how to learn as much as possible about Chinese architecture during my stay there.”

Struck’s research on traditional methods for building family dwellings was so fruitful, she notes, that it became the basis for her 2008 UNL master’s thesis – a key requirement for becoming an architect.

“I studied the traditional ‘courtyard house’ and the interactions between its spaces and the people who live there,” says the youthful architect, who grew up in Sioux Center, Iowa, before entering UNL’s five-year architecture program back in 2003. “China is changing rapidly, and everywhere you look, these traditional housing structures are being torn down and replaced by high rises and skyscrapers. What I wanted to do was to study the architectural past as a way of exploring housing for the future in China.”

Struck’s on-the-scene research – conducted during a three-month period in Tianjin (the site of Scott Killinger’s UNL architecture program) and several other urban locales – produced some remarkable insights into the struggle that is now taking place between the old and the new, all across the Middle Kingdom.

As the architect noted in her UNL master’s thesis (www.digitalcommons.unl.edu/ archthesis/68): “The once prominent Hutong [traditional] neighborhoods that have been in families for generations are being torn down to build high-rise housing developments.

These developments change the way people live, work and interact with others. ...

“Through my research ... I will determine what I believe to be the defining elements of traditional Chinese residential architecture. ... My goal is to design a housing complex that will meet the demands of their society today while retaining the elements that defined their culture in the past.”

Describing the obstacles she faced while studying architecture in a foreign country, Struck points out that “the adjustment challenges were formidable” ... and that she enjoyed herself thoroughly while struggling to meet them. “I guess I’m the kind of person who likes to step out of my ‘comfort zone,’” she said with a chuckle, “and China certainly gives you the opportunity to do that.

“But I do think I was very fortunate to have been able to study there, and I’m convinced that the UNL program at Tianjin will be a terrific resource for students – both Americans and Chinese – in the years ahead.

“There’s a new world coming, a global world, and programs like the one Scott is directing in China are going to be important in helping all of us to build it.” n NEBRASKAMAGAZINE

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