RISE - The Contest of Meaning by Women in Design - Kansas City

THE CONTEST OF MEANING Women in Design - Kansas City 2015 Edition

THE CONTEST OF MEANING Featuring architects, designers, and emerging professionals who have made an impact on the profession, RISE 2015 discusses the values and the dilemmas of the decisions designers must make in an age of creative possibility and pragmatism. Segmented into four chapters, this compilation explores various paths to success, methods of practice, project types, and common challenges design professionals face throughout their careers. A contest of meaning exists in every design task, career decision, and life choice. How does a person decide what is most meaningful - for others and for oneself?

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Media Representation Angela Brady

VALUE THE CONTEXT

Donna Buck & Jana BeeTriplett

Gulla Jonsdottir

DEFINE THE METHODOLOGY

DETERMINE THE PURSUIT

Climbing the Career Ladder

Conveying Meaningfulness Behind Design

Merging Design Education & Professional Practice

Julia King

Susan P. Stevenson

Opening a Design Practice Deborah Saunt

Humanitarian Design

Begin Again

Nathalie Rozencwajg

Thoughts on Design Agency Sheila Kennedy

Genevieve Baudoin

Listening to Our History Lindsay Nencheck

Process for Well-Being

Laura Beth Cochran

Biographies Authors + Editors

Residential Design Rebecca Riden

Sponsors & Credits

CONTRIBUTORS

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OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES

Dominique Davison

Urban Design

Collaboration & Recognition

Voices of Women in Architecture Charmalee Gunaratne

CELEBRATING RISE

WOMEN IN DESIGN - KANSAS CITY In 2005, Women in Design - Kansas City was established as a community for women involved in the design professions to come together in advocacy, mentorship, and support. WiD-KC provides opportunities to educate, enhance, explore and celebrate the historic and present contributions of women in the design industry. Although grounded in architecture, WiD-KC has broadened its reach to include members from all professions associated with the design of the built environment: landscape, graphics, industrial design, engineering, interiors, construction and marketing. Learn more at www.widkc.org

10 YEARS 07

EDITORS’ LETTER RISE is the official trade journal of Women in Design - Kansas City. It serves to raise awareness of local and international female contributions to the community and to provide a platform for the feminine perspective on architecture and design. We present a dialogue of expertise expressing the successes and challenges of women in the architecture and design professions. From the grit of our predecessors, determined to elevate the expectations of our society and of ourselves, we now can reference technological innovation, visionary genius, and ideational progress achieved by women; whereas, not so long ago, there were effectually no female examples to follow. While there remains an unsettling gender gap across the design fields, we aim to bring attention to the rising presence of female leadership and influence more so than the disparity. This compilation of first-hand experiences from around the globe inspires, surprises, and affirms that design does not rest dormant in the female mind. Your friends,

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(Top Left to Bottom Right) Lillian Cooper, Erin Hurd, Samantha McCloud, Katrina McKinnis Photography by: Katrina Elaine Photography ll l l

1894

1888

Louise Blanchard Bethune is the first American woman to work as a professional architect. After working in the oﬃce of Richard Waite for five years, she partnered with architect Robert Bethune. They later married and had a successful business. She was the first female associate of the American Institute of Architecture (AIA) and became a fellow soon after.

Julia Morgan is the first woman to receive a Civil Engineering degree from Berkeley University. Later, she was the first licensed female architect in California, as well as the first woman to be admitted to and graduate from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Paris.

Mary L. Page is the first woman to earn an architecture degree in the U.S., graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

of architecture programs in the U.S. still denied women entry in 1910.

1890

1873

50%

Elsie de Wolfe becomes the first interior decorator by profession. According to The New Yorker, “Interior design as a profession was invented by Elsie de Wolfe.”

A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES RISE

â&#x20AC;&#x153;One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself, know who you are, what you believe in and where you want to go.â&#x20AC;? Sheila Murray Bethel

Opening a Design Practice A conversation with Deborah Saunt, PhD Founder of DSDHA, London Those that dare to challenge the standard to produce meaningful projects are held in the highest esteem. An entrepreneur and visionary, Saunt is an individual with international reputation for socially-aware architecture and inspired design methodology.

As a result, I became obsessed with architecture. I would spend Saturdays at the local library looking at books about Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer and other amazing modern architects. I always saw myself as an architect. I always knew I would have a practice. I never questioned it. It was just what I was going to do. I never thought I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.

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l DSDHA designers gather for a pin up in their London studio

What experiences influenced you to start your own practice? I wanted to be an architect ever since I was a child. I grew up on building sites. My grandfather was a builder. My uncle was a builder. My parents employed an architect to change their house. I grew up with the culture of building. When I was ten years old, I said I was going to be an architect.

What was your career experience before founding DSDHA? In terms of my experience with other practices, during school I worked with the architecture firm my family hired to redesign their house. Also while in school, I visited architecture firms. I found out if peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parents were architects. I was always dying to meet architects. I have always been really interested in the diversity of RISE

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architecture. After graduating and before my post-graduate, I worked in America. I worked in San Francisco in the interior design department at Macy’s. I designed huge shops, interiors of shops. In addition to the refined places that might be designed by Le Corbusier, I was curious how one did big places, like shopping centers…the places where real people go. Before Macy’s I had a job at an architecture firm that made mass tract housing. They believed you could cookie cutter the same house and place it all over. They had no specificity to their work. I left after four weeks. When I came back to London I worked with an amazing architect, Joan Van Heyningen. I was very lucky. She was very influential in my life then and through the rest of my career. For a few years, I also worked with another amazing woman who 13

also teaches at Yale in America, M.J. Long. Finally, I worked with Tony Fretton. He is a very sensitive architect in London, internationally recognized for his work. I really wanted to understand the relationship between someone’s desire to make a building and then how on earth it becomes reality. It was all great experience. I never worked for the big boys, such as Foster or Rogers. That was my motto. I did not want to work for the big boys. On the firm’s website, DSDHA describes its approach as enabling “each project to achieve its fullest potential.” Can you share with us your philosophy on what determines a project’s potential? We operate at a range of scales simultaneously with any design. Everything we design comes from the view of what it is like to be

a person in that space. We insist that we visit the site personally and experience it personally. We also do research at a very big scale, which we call ‘research from 35,000 feet,’ the height at which you fly. We figuratively fly over the site, identifying things you cannot see when you are on the site. For example, very early on in a project for a nursing school that served lots of low-income families, we spoke to the head teacher: “You say that everybody is poor here, but the neighborhood around the nursery really looks not too poor.” She replied, “Oh that is because of the freeway. Just half a mile from here is a freeway. Everyone that comes to my nursery is on the other side of the freeway, which is a really poor area.” You cannot see it from the site, but every morning parents have to walk under the freeway, then through a wealthy area to come to the nursery.

These families also never saw the front of the building, but had to come through the back of the building. We discovered that the area where the children lived was horrible, filled with traﬃc noise and pollution. We would never have discovered that if we had not looked from 35,000 feet. We often discover poverty determined by infrastructure and segregation by nature or manmade things. We try to look at the macroeconomic and political and environmental influences on a site. The other thing that we do - we always talk to people. When we win any project that is bigger than a house, whether it is a school or public building, we go out and talk to one-hundred people. We ask them: why they are in the area; what is their journey around the area; where are they from and where are they going? It is amazing what you discover about an area just by talking to people. A man even recently described our architecture as conversational: “The result of the architecture you make is very much its own building, but it is always in conversation with the neighbors - the neighboring buildings, the neighborhood, and the bigger city.” I was really pleased that he said that because I think conversation is a really good tool. What is DSDHA’s strongest asset in working with clients and how have you developed that skill over time? People often ask us how we went from being a studio where we only did very small residential projects, such as an addition to a house or converting an attic, to being internationally recognized architects in just fifteen years. The only thing I can say is that we really listen. We have an ability

to absorb and grow, to change and to mature. We become more mature each time. We never make the same building twice. Every project is treated as unique and taken seriously, irrespective of its size. Our strongest asset is the humility to listen to criticism. We are very talented as most architects are very talented, but we take great pride in the fact that we always ask for feedback. Whenever we do a project, we designate time afterwards to ask people how we did and how we could have done it better. We ask people as we are working, “Is it clear what we are hoping for? Are you happy?” We also give our clients feedback to help with decision-making and project direction. We are constantly amazed that clients come to us and want to work with us because we do insist on research and on taking risks. Any innovation demands risk. I think clients see the end architecture we produce has tremendous value, not only financial value but social value. Our clients take the risk to work with us because we can give them a lot. Politically we are very well-respected; the local government trusts us to be very honest and to defend the public good in our work. We do not just do what the client wants, and we do say to the client, “You know the city really needs this… We should do this for the city. Your project should be a gift to the city.” We believe a project should benefit both the client and the city. Some clients come to us and like what we do, but they find our methodology a bit diﬃcult. From our years of experience, we learn to be very honest immediately with clients. We say to clients,

“This is how we work. These are our values. Do you like us? Do you still want to work with us?” Now we have just moved our oﬃce in London to a very quirky, strange location. It is in a really downbeat part of town, down an alley. Our studio is full of project models. As you enter, you come into a big kitchen with a range and dining area. If the people look unhappy by the time they come into this room, then we know they are probably not the right client; equally, they know we are not the right architect for them. We definitely have an aversion to being corporate. When we were younger, we thought in order to get big work we would have to be like Gensler or Foster or Zaha. It took us ten years to discover you have to be like yourself. You can only be yourself. If you stay true to your values, you will be more successful than any other situation where you are not true to yourself. I have to say it is very hard because everybody has to pay a mortgage. We did make a lot of sacrifices early on. We did not have very much money or a fancy house. We earned hardly anything. It all paid oﬀ. What essential agencies have most assisted in your success since 1998, when you founded DSDHA? There are theoretical agents that underscore practical agency. Theoretical Agency: First, research is a key form of agency for DSDHA because we go out and talk to people. We do pure research projects in addition to architecture through teaching. In my role as a professor, I lead research about essential questions in architecture and urbanism. Teaching lets me explore these issues without having a client. The research RISE

and connections gained through talking to people and teaching is fundamental to our success. Second, architects need to have a point of view as a form of agency. I talk in public. I lecture. Having a point of view brings me into contact with new ideas. People come to me because they want to know my opinion about something, but they do not realize that it in-turn gives me ideas about other ways to understand architecture. It is continual learning. Practical agency: We do have a network. Our network has come from success in competitions and awards. From the very beginning we have believed in speculating about architecture through competitions. When we make a good project we like to share it with the world. We do not try to win awards for ourselves, but to celebrate what our clients have done. It is a way to thank them. We want to win awards so our clients can be congratulated. We already get the reward of seeing our building, we do not need the gold medal. However, the award system is really important because it gives the next client confidence. Having a good award system promotes innovation and changes architecture for the better. We had a lot of luck. In the first five years we had a government wanting to spend money on public buildings. They held lots of competitions. Through government funding we were able to create some really interesting buildings. I would say government policy helped us a great deal. In both contexts, theoretical and practical, the main agent is you. You are your own best agent. DSDHA has a mantra: for every job, you have to insert yourself 15

into the project. When extra eﬀort is required to overcome a challenge or extra inspiration to design around a constraint, we say, “Come on. What can we do to make this happen?” I think many architects keep a professional distance from a project, and I think education also communicates that it is very much the client that makes the building. Truly, though, architects have to do a lot to make a project happen. For example: I will meet people; I will lobby for the project; I will generate publicity for a project; I will challenge regulations. Architects need to be aware of agency as an integral part of making architecture because it is not enough to have a good idea. Architects must take ‘design-actions’ as I call it. There are design goals in every project to make a material thing with certain qualities. However, in order to make design realized and even better, you have to take design-action. What is one notably rewarding experience you have had through working on a project? One of the most rewarding experiences happened in our first year, when we were operating in a very run-down part of the city. We were just doing small residential projects and teaching about large-scale urban issues at the time. We received a telephone call from a local charity who had found us in the telephone book; this was before the internet. They wanted a local architect to design a small café and pocket park playground in between a road and a railway. They discovered us by complete accident. This was our first public space and public building. We were so young and did not know how everything worked. Outside of our design scope, we had suggested to the

DSDHA oﬃce, London ll l

charity that a pedestrian crossing would improve the neighborhood, giving children access to the park. When we went back there months later, the local city officers had put in a proper pedestrian crossing to get to the park. The charity went out after the project was complete and spoke to the city officers and politicians for the pedestrian crossing. It was the most rewarding moment because it proved to me that if you have an idea and you ask and you draw it, it can happen. It confirmed to me that architecture is about possibility. Even though it is one of the smallest public projects I have worked on, it is one of my most personal and important experiences of the power of inspiration. How have you defined the culture of your practice? We wanted to be very conscious about the way that we made architecture. When I worked for the offices mentioned before, I really enjoyed it, but I also found it frustrating. I was always thinking about how I would do things differently. I really enjoyed working with Tony Fretton, who was also a teacher; he teaches architecture around the world. Working with him, he was always sharing ideas. He had an openness about how challenging it is to make good architecture and about how there is no one fixed way of doing it. He expressed the role of doubt in architecture. When you are making architecture, it is an experimental space; there is no fixed model. The same year that we started, we traveled to Australia to write an article about young Australian architects. We went to Melbourne and met with architects at RMIT, the university there, researching their design process. The methodology that they were using fascinated us. They had a really high degree of consciousness about their methodology. We borrowed that consciousness when we set up our practice. We have always given ourselves time to reflect on our practice along the way and to ask ourselves, “Are we doing what we want to do? Where do we want to go next?” We are a reflective practice much more than a myopic corporate practice. We do not believe in ‘big is better;’ we would rather stay small and agile. Now in the new studio, we like the fact that we have a kitchen. Because most of the people here spend the majority of their life at work, we want it to feel more like a part of their life rather than working at an office. We do not call it an office.

We call it a studio. We also sponsor a ‘Surfari’ every year. I read the management book Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. It is the best management guide I have ever read. When someone recommended that book to me, I said, “That is want we want; let’s go surfing.” If we have enough money, we also go on night trips to Italy or Portugal or Spain. Every month we go out and about to a local building together as a group to enjoy sharing architecture together, not necessarily our projects. It is wonderful because you get to see what other people think of it and have a conversation. We try and compensate for how much hard work architecture is. RISE

DETERMINE THE PURSUIT Award-winning DSDHA project, Hoyle Early Years Center, employs a sustainable strategy of remodeling & extending an existing nursery ll l

From your experience, what fundamental attributes should a firm’s founder have? If you are a founder of an architecture firm, you have to accept that you are a leader. I know it sounds really obvious, but it took me a few years to accept that my role is to lead and demonstrate through my own actions. You can never switch oﬀ from that. At the same time as being a leader, you also have to have the ability to listen and to remember what it is like to be an employee. Try and always reflect. I think very few founders remember their original values once they become successful. Oh, I am being critical, aren’t I? 17

Be accessible. Do not be remote. I do not sit in a separate oﬃce. Even though you are really busy, you have to be present. You also need to share your methodology with your team. We make sure when people come to DSDHA that they understand our methodology and our values. What challenges should be expected in starting a new practice? Exhaustion. [Laughs] Exhilaration. Delight. Humility. What was the question again? The hardest thing is to identify why you are doing

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What rewards can someone look forward to in starting a new practice? As a woman, the biggest reward is seeing other women join my studio. I am so proud of the fact that they want to work with me because I really want to encourage more women to go into architecture. There is reward in knowing you can make a diﬀerence and all the small steps taken together can change the culture. I still go into rooms where I am the only woman and there are fifteen men. I still get invitations to go to conferences where there are no female speakers. Every time I get one, I always respond, “I am so sorry, I cannot come because I do not see anybody on the list of speakers who is the same gender as me.” I cannot believe I have been an architect for such a long time and some people still have not gotten the message that fifty percent of the population is female. The biggest reward is being a good role model for the future generation of women - you can have family and a successful practice. One of the rewards of being the boss is that I can put in my calendar that I have a very important meeting and it is to go see my son or daughter perform in a play or do sports at school. At times, I have had clients very angry with me for being unavailable for a meeting. I do not say that my son has a play, but I say, “I am sorry I have another client with whom I have a very important meeting. I cannot change it.” I think it is really important that I demonstrate that I put my children first at times and that I think that is acceptable. Lastly, what has been one meaningful surprise discovered in your career? Because I still teach, I think there is a complete myth about part-time working. There are currently four directors at our studio now. I teach and my other colleague Tom teaches. We are both part-time. We are not in the studio five days a week, nine to six. We are in and out. I say to the women that want to work part-time, just figure out a method to be flexible so that you can get what you need and an employer can get what they need. Also, do not assume one solution will work forever. It may evolve and change. Keep talking about it. Design your own career. Do not just accept what other people tell you to do. ll

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l The Covert House aims to not disturb its surroundings. This family home in a conservation area in London was designed around sustainability with a minimalist material palette.

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it - to really question what your motive is and to remain true to your values. The pressure to be like someone else or work like some other firm, to be trendy, needs to be pushed away. Making time for reflection is important. Time for ideas. Time to be sociable. Do not let your practice lose its humanity.

Climbing the Career Ladder A conversation with Principals Jana BeeTriplett and Donna Buck GWH+BB, Kansas City, Missouri

When it comes to career paths, it seems no two stories are the same. Well-respected in the community for their diverse portfolio, long-standing client relationships, and commitment to design consciousness, Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck leads by example. RISE had the pleasure to speak with two driven individuals that entered the company as intern architects and today have their name on the front door.

What brought you into architecture? While you were beginning your career, what were your intentions as a young professional? Jana (J): I knew I had a passion for architecture from a very young age. I explored all of the Victorian homes in my neighborhood and I loved the walk-up attics and summer kitchens in the basements. I decided I wanted to be an architect in seventh grade. Since I already knew how to cook and sew, I did not want to take Home Economics, so I signed up for the Woodworking, Metal Shop and Drafting classes. We learned to draw the object we were going to build, and then we would use our design to build it. They were all very basic items, but I loved it. From the start of my formal career, I knew I wanted to be a licensed architect, and I knew RISE

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I wanted to be a business owner. I graduated from architecture around the same time that Kansas had made IDP a requirement for licensure. I did not waste any time – as soon as I had completed the requirements, I started taking the tests (this was the first year the tests were oﬀered electronically). I decided to complete the tests as quickly as possible, throughout a threemonth period. Licensure was the first step to achieving my goals. Donna (D): I did not think about architecture until after high school, but art had been a passion of mine throughout high school. After graduation, I pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas. However, after I started my degree, I thought to myself, “Wow, there are a ton of really talented people here, and I am not one of them.” At that point, I decided to pursue a major in Interior Design which allowed me to use my artistic 21

l Kirk Gastinger and Jana BeeTriplett collaborate in the GWH+BB design studio

skills but also allowed me to appreciate the artwork of others. My first job was with an interiors firm based out of Dallas that had oﬃces in Topeka and Kansas City. When they closed the Kansas City oﬃce, I was not interested in going to Dallas so I came to work at Gastinger Walker Harden in 1989. When I started working with Kirk Gastinger, he told me I would be a great architect and could take the exam, even with my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He helped me look up the requirements and set my goals. Since the exams, architecture has been a pretty linear process. This firm has been a great place to work and to learn all of the skills that it takes to be an architect and a business person. You have all of the opportunities, if that is what you want to do. I think both Jana and myself feel

that we ended up at the right firm that allowed us to grow and to pursue what we truly wanted to do. As your career developed, did you experience any disadvantages because of your gender? J: Not within my work environment. The male architects at our firm have always been supportive. Unfortunately, this is not always the case with others in the same industry. Being young and female, it was tough going out on the job site. In one instance when collaborating with another architecture firm, one of their older male architects said, “She cannot do it. She is a woman.” This just made me want to be the best architect I could be and prove him wrong. D: I have not felt any direct discrimination. I have surely felt uncomfortable in a meeting or leading a meeting where I am

the only woman there, but I also contribute part of that to being young. The men here have been such great role models. At one time, we even had more females than males in our oﬃce. Was there anyone or anything specific that significantly helped you at the beginning of your career? J: One of the best pieces of advice I received came from my IDP mentor. She told me that the architectural exam is just a test. You can study for a test and you can pass a test. It does not mean you are a very good architect. If you approach it like that, you will get through it. That advice helped me a lot. I also believe in setting goals. If you want something, set a goal, go after it, and do not be afraid to ask for it. Things are not given to you. You need to be confident enough in your abilities to go for it and ask for it. It does not mean demand it, but it means initiating a discussion and saying, “I am at this level. What are the steps I need to take in order to get to the next level?” D: I have had great role models from day one. My parents were great role models. They married

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young, went on to school, and worked hard all of their lives. They did what they had to do to get their children through school. I have also had great role models in professors and friends, as well as here at the firm. It sounds like the culture of the firm has been instrumental in your success. Now as Principals, how do you see yourselves continuing/improving that culture? J: I think the size of firm influences culture. When I was hired, the firm was sixteen people, and now we are fifty. As the firm grows, the culture changes – it has to. You have to recognize the change and adapt to it. D: It has nothing to do with gender, but it is important to make everyone understand that they are a valuable part of the team. Whether they have been here for four weeks or twenty-five years, whether they are twenty-five years old or fifty-five years old, they are just as important to the team as anybody else. I strive to make this clear to everyone that works with me because I truly believe it. I try to lead by example; I would never ask anyone to do anything that I would not do also. I think that should be a management style, in my opinion, for

l GWH+BB staﬀ in their downtown Kansas City studio

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It has been argued that women put walls in their own minds, hindering themselves from success. What is your opinion? J: I think women can be our own worst enemy. It is very hard to find balance, especially if you have kids. Architecture is a demanding profession and when trying to focus on work, kids, and your spouse, it becomes hard to find any time for yourself. I think there arises a lot of guilt. It is necessary to come to terms with what you want and not be ashamed. Do not worry about what others may say – just go after it. You can spend your entire life trying to please others, and you will be miserable. You need to figure out what makes you happy. Having a great partner helps tremendously. D: I agree. For anyone, you can be your own worst enemy. I think defining the way you achieve balance is important. Do not be ashamed of it. There are great moms and spouses out there that can do it all. We have a fairly close 50/50 gender ratio in schools, but there is a large gender discrepancy

between licensed and unlicensed architects. Would you say that having a license has helped you significantly in climbing up the career ladder? J: We encourage every intern in our firm to be licensed, as a personal goal. As long as you show you are capable, you can do a lot in our firm without being licensed, but there is a limit. I did not want to be limited. D: Absolutely. When I found out I was able to become licensed, I told myself, “I am going to do that.” It has definitely helped me in my profession. Since I have an interiors background, getting the recognition for passing meant a lot to me. Is faster better when trying to get your license? J: It depends on the person. In my case, if I put it oﬀ, I would continue to put it oﬀ. I needed a deadline. I think it gets harder to do the older you get because more personal life issues arise that limit your amount of free time to study and prepare. If I had to do it again, I would schedule all the tests back to back and just get it done. D: I think it is up to the person. Just go after it.

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everyone. I think the more you can open up doors and knock down walls it is for the better. I think we are getting there.

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l Donna Buck working with architect Melissa Brown

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J: You can work all day and all night if you want to, designing and redesigning. Unfortunately, the reality is cost and budget. Coming out of school with aspirations to be a great designer, it can be hard to face the reality of meeting codes, client expectations and budgets. You would end up giving away your time for free because the project budget would not support that kind of focus. D: I think it takes a while to learn that. When I was first out of school, I was nervous working on a project - the pressure to do the project within a certain number of hours, under a certain fee, making sure I had everything covered for the client. I did not want to make a mistake. As you get older and more experienced, you learn how to manage all of that. It used to be â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh my gosh, there is a problem. What do I do?â&#x20AC;? But no one is perfect and there are going to be issues. You learn that you are always able to work through them. There has never been a major catastrophe. Experience helps put things into perspective. J: Yes. If there is an issue, we do not jump one way or another in panic. We sit down and discuss the problem and the steps we need to take to fix the problem. If there are financial changes, we talk about it. It is hard at first because when an issue comes up, it might feel like a personal attack. Ultimately, it is about doing a good job. Take care of your clients and they will come back. We also have really good clients. D: Clients know you are not perfect. If you make an admission to your mistakes, they recognize and respect the honesty. As you get more experienced, you take problems less personally. As far as achieving your goals, in addition to being self-driven, is there equal importance on building relationships with superiors and seeking support? J: You need to know your limitations. Do not be afraid to ask a question in fear of being seen as not knowing. It is more respected to be open about what you do not know and interested in finding out. First, spend some time on your own to figure something out. If you cannot find the solution, then ask for help. D: I think everybody needs support. I think it is human nature. It is always better to have someone on your side that you can turn to. Whether it is 25

a coworker, a family member, a spouse, in all aspects of life people need support. I think young professionals should reach out for support. It is also a responsibility for us, as principals, to support you. It is part of our role here to support everyone around us. What final takeaway should aspiring design professionals understand? J: As an architect, you are always learning. It is important to be open and able to learn from everyone. There are things we can learn from younger professionals. It is important to have a broad group of folks supporting you. D: Being part of a team. That is the way I like to live and work. Having the support here at Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck, in our experience, allowed us to be in front and to confidently grow professionally. Build those relationships. Find the firm and the position you are comfortable with, where you feel part of the team. Find the firm where they are supporting you, and they are dependent on you too. Nurture those relationships. ll

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In addition to finding the time to get licensed, what other career challenges require the ability to find balance?

Begin Again: Making a Case for Things Susan P Stevenson, PhD University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, Missouri As designers, we often attempt to forecast the future of our clientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needs, neighborhood development, cultural influences, environmental and economic changes, and others, but sometimes the future of our own lives takes us by surprise. Associate Professor of Interior Design at the University of Central Missouri shares her experience on starting a new beginning. In examination of a meaningful life, a recent Google search resulted in hundreds of articles about what to value in life. Four elements for a meaningful life rose to the top of the list: health, relationships, self-view and purpose. Physical and mental health, social support systems, and our sense of self and purpose together determine how we interact with the world and how we judge the meaningful in our lives. How does our environment come into play among these four elements? Despite the current digital era, our attachment to the environment remains critically important in our pursuit of a meaningful life. We are bound to the environment for air, water, food and shelter; the basis of our existence. And this is only the foundation of our relationship to our environment. The beauty of natural environments is a reflection of the power of time. While experiencing these places, physiological changes occur in our bodies as our focal distance is increased, our stressful lives are paused and our minds are allowed to wander and become fascinated like a childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind. Here we relax, participate in exercise, breathe fresh air and sleep better at night. In short, these places and activities act together to restore us both physically and mentally to a sort of base-line of selfness1.

Our everyday environments are also critically important to us for a meaningful life. This is the stage where we live, work and play. These environments are encompassed by our homes, workplace, and schools; additionally our cars, our commute, and the places we frequent on a daily basis. These environments contribute to our sense of identity and our relationship with these environments is one of reciprocity. We act on and in our environments as they simultaneously play both active and passive roles. These daily places dictate our behavior and provide the context for our experiences. These places are the backdrop in our photos and provide important context for memory. It is significant for humans to have a sense of belonging in these places, to have the right to use and act in there, to be able to appropriate and modify these places. These are the places that we reference to define ourselves. These are the places to which we are attached and with which we identify. Certainly these places are significant in the creation of meaning in our lives.2 Today we live in a dichotomous culture that verbally eschews people who are materialistic. Some synonyms for materialistic RISE

Humans are distinct from animals in that the objects and things we make are more than just tools for survival. The things we make “embody goals, make skills manifest, and shape the identities of their users.3” Just as we have a reciprocal relationship with our environments, we have a reciprocal relationship with our things. We make and are made by our things. Our things, because we choose to have them in our lives or homes, are intentional parts of who we are or who we want to become. In short, our things become a part of our identity in much the same way that places do. So, what happens when our human relationships and our environmental context become threatened? What happens when chaos strikes? Where is our solace and where is our sense of self? How do we survive and, moreover, how do we begin to rebuild? How do we begin to trust anyone or anything again? The answer to this could be found in things. Our things are a critical component in the process of starting over. Often many life changing events are coupled with traumatic experiences, and people are placed in scenarios where they have to begin again. This starting 27

over is a trauma on top of a trauma in most cases. Here are some examples: natural disaster or fire that results in the loss of home, divorce, the death of a family member, moving away, or entering an assisted living facility or nursing home. These are traumatic events, when a loss of environmental security couples with the loss of important human relationships. When these events occur, the most important things are things. If anything can

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and photographs that I thought would help. These, however, just reminded me of what I had lost or left behind. These things were actually more depressing than helpful. I had to create new relationships, develop a new place identity, and create a meaningful life in a foreign place. My grandparents had recently passed away, so I was able to bring a bedroom set from each of their homes. These were

l A bed-frame, a dresser, a quilt - things can become emotional anchors in the process of healing

be salvaged, anything from the trauma, humans have the ability to fill those things with meaning and memory, and they become important parts of the stone soup of recovery. Recovering from a bad marriage and divorce triggered a physical and mental health crisis, a career change and a radical move halfway across the country to start over in a place where I did not know anyone. My relationships were nine-hundred miles away, so there were no comforting hugs. When I moved to Missouri, I had a brick shelter, a car, a broken psyche, my first job after a radical career change, and some stuﬀ. I began the rebuilding of a life and the recovering of my sense of self with only a few things because I had no nearby personal connections nor significant places. My telephone connected me somewhat with my best friend and parents. I had letters, emails

furniture pieces that I had grown up with and made the rooms in my brick shelter more familiar by helping me feel closer to my family despite the distance. I had a table from my great aunt’s house as well. These things were what I needed; they were strong, durable and packed with memories of people and events from home. They were personal and impersonal in all the right ways; they helped me feel strong instead of reminding me of loss. Their presence helped anchor me in my new home. These are still treasured furnishings in my life and help me to create a sense of home no matter where I live. I love to buy original art at shows and festivals, so I had some beautiful (and meaningful) pieces of art to hang on the walls, and these also helped to create a sense of home away from home. I began the process of nesting in my new home, and that was a major step in starting over. Once

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include: greedy, carnal, objectoriented, possessive and unspiritual. Yet every other advertisement on the internet or television tells us what things we need to have to be perceived as healthy, sexually attractive, successful, and accomplished. It is not the intent of this article to provide an argument or justification for the conspicuous consumption of valuable resources, but rather to appreciate and honor why things become quite important to our health, relationships, self-view and purpose.

“ I had to create new relationships, develop a new place identity, and create a meaningful life in a foreign place.”

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l Susan’s home in a new city; a built environment provides a safe place for emotional rebuilding

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I had a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to live in, then I was able to tackle the relationships issue. Shelter first, then relationships. Building new relationships in a foreign place has its ups and downs. I met good people and bad. There were days when I could not wait to go home and shelter myself from the world. In a short time, I had some good working relationships, but I have to tell you, it took me about two years to find a significant other and ten years to build a group of trusted friends. I still miss my family. My identity as a girl from southwestern Virginia is still very important to me, but I have started to feel like Missouri is home. It has been quite a journey. I am proud of what I have accomplished and the relationships that I have built. I am not living the life I thought I would back when I was twenty years old, but the life I am living is replete with relationships, the opportunity to participate with other people in a meaningful way, and I have a strong and secure sense of self. I know that if I had to, I have the skills to begin again, under most any circumstances, as long as I have a few things. ll

1 Kaplan, S. 1995 and Kaplan, R., Kaplan, S., & Ryan, R. 1998 2 (Chawla, 1992 and Low & Altman, 1992). 3 (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochburg-Halton, 1981)

1927 1921

The Association of Women in Architecture was founded in 1922 as Alpha Alpha Gamma, a national sorority for female architecture students in the U.S.

Elizabeth Martini forms the Chicago Drafting Club that later becomes the Women’s Architectural Club, recognized today as the earliest organization of practicing female architects in the U.S.

1963

Woman-owned architectural firm, Schenk + Mead, is founded by Marcia Mead and Anna Schenk. They designed the community plan for Connecticut Development that is now on the National Historic Register.

Women make up of registered U.S. architects in 1950

1948

1918

Anna Kelchline, the first licensed female architect in Pennsylvania, patented the K Brick in 1927. One of her seven patents, the K Brick was a hollow clay brick, less heavy and more economical than others used at the time.

Ada Louise Huxtable becomes the first female architecture critic in the U.S. with the New York Times. She received the Pulitzer Prize for ‘distinguished criticism’ in 1970.

In 1948, the Dover Sun House in Dover, MA, was designed by Eleanor Raymond, a Cambridge School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture graduate. This was the first occupied solar-powered house in the U.S. and one of the first successful solar buildings.

A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES RISE

“To create, one must first question everything.” Eileen Gray

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l Skyline Study by a student of Nathalie

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Merging Design Education and Professional Practice A conversation with Nathalie Rozencwajg, AA Diploma, RIBA Founder of RARE, London Commended as the AJ Emerging Woman Architect of the Year in 2012, Rozencwajg founded RARE, an internationally-renowned architecture practice, just four years after her graduation from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 2001. Putting together practice and pedagogy, she also teaches at the Architectural Association and organizes design workshops around the world. Through your position as Unit Master at the Architectural Association, international workshops, and lectures worldwide, you demonstrate a commitment to the education of the global community, in addition to your practice. What sparked your passion towards architectural education? The Architectural Association did and still does. It is a place of continuous learning, whether as a student or as a tutor. The work the school engages in is approached through prospective thinking. Following my studies there, I had the opportunity a few years later to teach in a summer school, and the fulfillment this experience generated led to a long-term teaching position. Teaching has oﬀered us the possibility to explore architectural interests in an experimental environment, enriched by the interactions with our students. Teaching keeps the passion alive, and greatly enriches our professional practice. What has helped you in achieving balance among professional practice and educational enrichment efforts? At RARE we do not perceive these as unrelated or distinct. We fully consider our academic time as an integral part of our professional practice. Of course these worlds sometimes demand diﬀerent rhythms and engagements, but the associations generated between these enrich one another. The educational quests we embark upon with our studios feed our practice’s projects and explorations in architecture. 33

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l Digital Rendering of Davvi Arctic Resort Hotel Complex

Within professional practice, what positive outcomes have you witnessed or experienced from your contributions to education? The particular status of the Architectural Association and its position both in London and the wider architectural scene has led to incredible encounters with interesting professionals. Our involvement in the academic spheres has generated many opportunities to collaborate with experts of various backgrounds and fields, and has greatly enriched our practice. Teaching also provides the opportunities to come into contact with talented future professionals. Like-minded students, whom we spend a year working with in the academic context, sometimes integrate with

our professional practice and greatly contribute to the work of our oďŹ&#x192;ce. Outside professional practice, what positive outcomes have you witnessed or experienced from your contributions to education? One of the greatest achievements is to see students evolve and flourish. Accompanying them on this journey and being a part in their educational process is very rewarding. The gratitude notes received, the updates on their professional life, and the recognition of having shaped their architectural thinking is very gratifying. What education methods do you perceive are most effective when teaching design? Educating architects or designers involves teaching them to look at the world with a particular set of

mind and questions. This process can only take shape in time and the actual experience of the process. I believe in the experience of the process of design as the best education. A school should oďŹ&#x20AC;er the most creative setting possible for an openly experimental approach to teaching and learning. Developing strong concepts and having the time to translate these into design proposals empowers students to become inspired and inspiring designers. The unit (or studio) system as an environment for teaching and learning, where small groups of students embark on a journey with their tutors in the context of a defined brief, embeds the potential to generate academic excellence. This also relies on the relative freedom and time given to develop a body of work. RISE

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What is the most important message architectural education sends to future designers? I would say that the important thing is to never stop questioning. What do you see as the main disparities between the educational environment and professional practice? I see the main disparity between the educational environment and professional practice as time. The time to develop ideas, test them, fail and succeed; an educational environment can provide this precious resource. It educates designers to develop such thinking processes and habits. As both teachers and practitioners we put great eďŹ&#x20AC;orts in blurring this gap and consider our professional work as 35

experimentation, to bring rich and crafted work to each condition. How might the contrariety between the educational environment and professional practice be resolved? I do not see a contrariety between the two worlds; what you learn in one should feed the other and continue to do so. This is a matter of spirit and a discipline to maintain. At RARE, we balance the spirit of research and innovative approach with professionalism. What main challenges have you had to overcome? It is challenging to keep this outlook and vision alive. To preserve this spirit and pleasure of designing through explorations despite the sometimes harsher and demanding realities of practice.

What immediate goals do you envision need to be addressed by the architectural community to advance the future of architectural education and professional practice? Architectural education needs to remain a space of exploration and experimentation for ideas, techniques, methods, materials, fabrication, theory, designs, community, environment, etc. in order to form great designers. The pressures of a society that requires quick results and eďŹ&#x20AC;ortless monetary profit puts this at risk both at the educational level and more importantly in professional practice. The architectural community needs to protect the benefits that good design brings to our world; what we bring is priceless and we need to educate the wider community to value this. ll

Conveying Meaningfulness Behind Design A conversation with Gulla Jonsdottir Founder of Gulla Jonsdottir Architecture & Design, Los Angeles, California Jonsdottir, an Iceland native, is the visionary force and founder of her firm, Gulla Jonsdottir Architecture & Design. Around the globe, her work executes the highest level of design distinction to create deeply compelling experiences.

What drew you to become an architect and to start your own practice? As a child, I vividly remember walking through the streets of Florence with my mother: gazing up at the Florentine skyline, the graceful dome of the Duomo, the beauty and fortification of the city. I could not eat or drink for days. I was intoxicated with its architecture, art and history. Back home in Reykjavik, Iceland, I used to draw with my grandfather every day. He was an artist and was influential to what I do today. I recall a pivotal moment when I looked out of my window at home thinking “these buildings could be much prettier.” That was the start of my journey in architecture. I was nineteen and had just graduated from junior college with a degree in Mathematics & Biology. Since there were no architectural schools in Iceland,

my desire led me to Los Angeles to SCI-ARC (Southern California Institute of Architecture). I had never even been to America, but I left home to pursue my dream. Upon graduation, I was oﬀered a position at Richard Meier’s oﬃce and worked on the Getty Center and Gagosian Gallery. There I learned the art of geometry and serene building styles from this master. From there I decided to dabble in the set design field and worked as a set designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. I got to spend a great deal of time in Tokyo, another city I fell in love with. After countless pacific crossings for four years, an opportunity in hospitality design came, and I started to work at a firm called Dodd Mitchell Design. The funny thing is, when I was twelve and in Florence, I forgot my nightgown in the hotel, and my mother told

me that it meant that I would be back there. She was right. I loved staying at hotels, but I did not expect that I would end up designing and living in hotels for several years. After running Dodd Mitchell Design for nine years, and with the advent of my fortieth birthday on the horizon, it was time to fully express my voice, my passion and my artistry. Though it was the middle of the 2009 recession, I took the chance and set up my own firm. It was RISE

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l Supperclub Beirut, a restaurant and nightclub in Beirut, Lebanon

a natural step and my adventure still continues. As you gained experience in the industry, how has your design process evolved? An important lesson that I learned at SCI-ARC was that you had to have a concept behind what you are designing. I still follow this rule, my design has to have a story. I have to believe in the story 37

very strongly before I can sell it to my client. I have learned to trust my initial intuition for a project. Sometimes this original idea evolves, but usually it goes back to my first instinctual feeling. With experience, you learn what you can do within a budget, but more importantly is that the design has meaning. It is soulful and appeals to all five senses of the human body. I do not want the spaces to only look good

but also to feel good. What continues to surprise me is that some clients do not share the same passion that I have for the projects that I design for them. Some of them think of it only as a profit/money-making asset that they want to sell in a few years. So to this day, I always tell them that they will fall in love with the project and will not want to let go of it. It may sound childish, but this is the passion

that I carry to all of my work. How do you find design inspiration? Is there a pattern to your research? Usually, when I first visit the project site, I take it all in, walk away, have a nice lunch, and start sketching. Within a few hours, the concept is born, it sort of flows from my pencil. But in essence, my main inspirations are always from nature and art. I also like to look through magazines. In a nice dress, I may see a concrete pattern for a wall I need; for example, a tower in Dubai was inspired by a flamenco dress. My architecture is greatly shaped by light and shadow and the human form. There are no straight lines in the human body, so why should there be in the spaces we live in? One of my clients even gave me a ruler for Christmas, but it somehow got lost. Beautiful and elegant, many of your designs implement complex custom construction and fabrication. What programs do you most frequently use to design your forms and then to create the final construction documents to communicate the designs to builders? Well thank you for saying that, and I always do try to make architecture with artistic integrity. I think it is important for us who work in this field to do our best to beautify the world. I first start in a very old-fashioned way with a hand sketch, and then we transfer this to programs such as AutoCAD, Rhinoceros, and SketchUp. The final drawings are delivered mostly in AutoCAD format, but the 3D renderings are for support of understanding the forms exactly. Recently I have used a 3D printer, and I find this extremely useful. Your office offers architecture, interior, product design, and branding services. How has having a cross-disciplinary design practice affected communication strategies with clients, with the public, and internally? Creativity has no boundaries. I like to oďŹ&#x20AC;er my clients a global experience of design through all mediums - architecture, interior design, furniture design, products, branding and accessories - so the project is cohesive and flows smoothly. I sense that the guests can feel a sensuous dynamic RISE

Paolo Bongia jewelry store in Beverly Hilla, CA l

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environment of design that is executed carefully and detailed thoughtfully. When designing, putting an idea on paper is the first challenge. However, in many cases, getting an idea approved for construction is the biggest challenge, factoring in budget and time limits of the client. When cost needs to come down, how do you convey the value of design choices to your clients? This is the most challenging part of our industry. My least favorite word is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;value engineeringâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, but it happens in every project. We start with a concept that the client loves. We do the due-diligence of detailing everything, and then, the price from the contractor comes back usually higher than expected. Sometimes we start with a given budget from a client, but sometimes the client does not have a set budget. There are always variations when it comes down to construction.

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l Rich texture & organic lines convey luxury & elegance at Girasol Restaurant in Los Angeles, CA

I have been fortunate to work with very talented artisans that come through for me because they have the same passion as I do with their craft. When it comes down to conveying the value of design choices, we select the most important feature and stick to this one, then others get RISE

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simplified or we figure out a way of building it diﬀerently which is less costly. The most important thing is to stay true to the original concept of the project and keep the essence of it. We always find ways to come in on budget in the end.

people’s experience of that space to feel like they are in Mexico by the ocean. It is not about me, it is about the space and its location; the feeling it gives you when you step into that space or when you look at the structure from the outside.

Over the years, what experience has been most enlightening on how to successfully communicate meaning in design to clients?

When beginning a project, are there certain ‘red flags’ you look to avoid?

Sometimes I have a hidden meaning behind my design that I do not always communicate directly. For example, a project I am designing in Beirut, Lebanon: the building looks like a giant white flower, a peaceful rose sitting in a reflective water pond. My symbol of this rose is Peace in the Middle East, but do I dare to say that directly to the client? In essence, the building is a statement for this project, and, to me, it is something else as well, that hopefully will be communicated without words. As a project develops, what decisions help facilitate effective communication? I feel that each project has to be site-specific. The building or interiors should reflect the location you are working in. For example, if I am designing a resort in Cabo, Mexico, I want 41

If I do see red flags, I politely turn the project down. For example, I recently turned down four projects in a foreign country. The way they phrased their contract, they could basically take my original concept idea, and then finish the project on their own without any quality control from my team. This is always worrisome to me, and I decided that if the right intention was not there, that this would not be worth my time or create any value to the patrons or my practice. What communication channel has been most helpful in achieving success as a designforward architecture firm? Some press and numerous awards may help, but it always comes down to professional relationships with people and word-of-mouth recommendations in the end. Lastly, if your firm’s projects

were speaking collectively, what would they say? Seductive, dynamic and poetic assembly of design; a symphony of the arts colliding in a singular space reflecting a peaceful and calming environment. I feel that a successful design is inspired by nature and influenced by site specifics which integrates local environments; nature and culture blend to allow the guest to experience and embrace native value. I like to push the aesthetic envelope and to integrate beauty and function. All in all, it is the language of falling in love with art and architecture. This, I hope, is the overall message of my work. ll

Thoughts on Design Agency A conversation with Sheila Kennedy, FAIA Co-Founder of KVA Matx, Boston, Massachusetts Leading an interdisciplinary practice widely recognized for material exploration and innovation in architecture, urbanism and the design of infrastructure for emerging public needs, Kennedy was the 2014 recipient of the Berkeley-Rupp Prize, one of the most significant awards in architecture.

As co-founder of an internationally-respected practice and a Professor of the Practice of Architecture at MIT, how do you define design agency? First, I should explain the context of my practice. My partner Juan Frano Violich, FAIA and I are founding Principals of KVA Matx, an eighteen-person firm with our studio headquarters in Boston. KVA Matx designs architecture, urbanism, and resilient new infrastructure for emerging public needs. KVA is unusual in that we are an independent, agile and vertically integrated practice with projects at diﬀerent scales. We engage design from concept to production; from the creation of new materials and infrastructure to the preparation and administration of architectural construction documents. With my colleagues at KVA Matx, I

have created a new model for practice that values design as a form of research that is applied in the projects we work on. At KVA Matx, we are committed to the idea of agency in architecture— the capacity for the discipline of architecture to advance change in institutions assumed to be ‘given’, to create new ideas, to shift people’s perceptions of material culture and propose new ways to realize design projects and get things done. By ‘agency’, I mean the capacity of the architect to act on or exert influence on a given situation or site context through the particular expertise of the architect. KVA Matx is interdisciplinary and collaborative, yet I think it is important to realize those things that are unique to architecture: the ability of the architect to define program activities and create space, to use materials in intelligent ways and to RISE

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imagine, explore and create new expressions for collective, public life in a time of increasing privatization. Of course, sometimes it is most interesting to misuse a material, to imagine new ways of using materials that expand upon a typical or given use - as I have argued in our book Material Misuse. The word ‘agency’ stems from the core notion of making or taking action, from the Latin root, agree, to act. Whatever the context, and even in its simplest form, ‘agency’ is important because it involves taking action. The architect takes action to ask questions, to imagine and realize diﬀerent outcomes, to use the particular expertise of the architect to act upon a given project or circumstance, to eﬀect change, produce new ideas and create new opportunities that were not previously present. 43

How does the form of agency in architecture affect the outcome of a project? Design agency may be used to advance systemic change within institutional organizations, such as museums, hospitals, universities or other organizational or building typologies, that are assumed to be ‘given’. It can be a vehicle to create new ideas that influence our contemporary culture, to shift people’s perceptions and propose new ways of making things (fabrication, construction and manufacturing) and getting things done (project delivery). Architecture enables and requires us to formulate a vision for how things could be in the future, and then to create a set of plans and strategies for getting there from the present. But it seems like this question assumes an instrumentality for design agency, some sort of

direct benefit that is empirically quantifiable. And if benefits are not direct, then somehow the notion of design agency is diminished. I do not think this is the case. It is interesting to remember that the current interest in agency in design, stems from a critique in the last two decades that architecture was being limited to an internal dialogue within the discipline, and that architecture was becoming irrelevant in the face of larger global challenges: climate change, equity and rapid urbanization. One could actually argue that there is currently almost an overreaction to this critique, and this runs the risk of weakening discourse and actually diminishing the flow of diverse ideas that is necessary to advance the discipline. Architecture is the discipline that deals with materiality, with space making and programmatic innovation, and with the creation

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l The East River Ferry Terminal at E 34th ST in Manhattan is the primary public ferry boat terminal in a major urban sustainable transportation initiative.

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As a practitioner, my particular interest lies in the not-yet present but near future, as a field of action in architecture and urbanism because this is the time scale where I think it is most important to act. The distant future has historically been the purview of ‘pure’ research, modern utopian thought and the universities. Our capacity to shape the near future is under-rehearsed, yet it is arguably even more important than the distant future. Taking action to ask questions about a given problem is a critical first step. This is more essential than simply trying to solve problems per se, because asking questions reveals deeper structures and cultural conditions that underlie the very problems that architecture wants to solve. In order to eﬀect change it is these factors that most need to be discussed, defined and understood. What current forms of agency have you implemented? I think that a lot of the time innovation or agency in architecture places too much emphasis on the new. The agency that advances incremental change is also of interest and very relevant to professional practice. I believe it was Edwin Land who said, “It’s not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.” I think that there is not going to be a revolution in architecture, but I certainly think there must be an evolution. Part of that evolution has to do with the idea of agency in architecture, and our ability to formulate ways to transform existing modes of 45

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of new ideas and ways of doing things, which are valuable and necessary tools to address these contemporary challenges.

practice while still working in them. Practitioners have become increasingly aware that the organizational and spatial and building technology concepts that we inherited from modernism are no longer adequate to meet the environmental and societal challenges of a world that is rapidly urbanizing. We are shifting from centralized to distributed regimes of information, fabrication, finance, and energy. Questions of the architect’s agency or ability to utilize design as a form of research are not incompatible with professional practice—in fact they are essential to it. What I am interested in is how design agency expands opportunities for practice, and how it can help to expand and transform practice from within. Sometimes agency in architecture may be exercised in very specific ways that are directly related to practice know-how. One example is the Chrysanthemum Building, a mixed-use residential development designed by KVA Matx, now under construction. The Chrysanthemum Building, that won a 2014 Holcim Award for Sustainable Design, builds on the simple idea that city living can promote new urban ecologies. The chrysanthemum, a common soil remediating plant native to New England, inspires the project’s identity. We had many meetings with the City to get the first micro-units in Boston approved, increasing first time home ownership in this urban neighborhood. We developed all-wood stud construction in this project, including party walls and elevator studs. Since the wood was locally sourced, it was more costly than the norm. We worked with the developer to create a mobile phone app where homeowners can find and patronize local sustainable food and service providers, producing an ‘after market’ revenue stream to oﬀset the higher first costs of the locally sourced building materials. It is a case where the digital realm works with the physical realm of the building. By taking a set of specific actions, we were able to achieve an integrated level of innovation RISE

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in the architecture of the building, advance the work of KVA Matx in exploring the connections between physical and digital networks, and contribute to promote a more ecologically responsible, urban lifestyle. What issues of architecture do you perceive present opportunities for agency? In projects such as the Soft House or the Portable Light Project, we have developed ways in which solar materials and discrete architectural elements can link with one another to become greater than the sum of their parts. These discoveries have developed through the appearance of these ideas in diﬀerent forms in a series of projects over time. The thing that connects these works is the design research ‘thread’ of a particular question or topic that is explored hopefully one step further in each project. At KVA Matx we try to increase the impact of our work and design research beyond the boundaries of a specific work of architecture. Our designs for building systems, mobile and adaptable infrastructure and parametrically defined construction assemblies are embedded and demonstrated in a specific project, yet these instantiations are also extractable and applicable in other projects, scales and contexts, which serves to broaden their adaptation and influence. I would like to work more on this. The way that design will be delivered in the world is changing due to distributed manufacturing and 3D printing. The market-based divisions that have distinguished design in the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world are eroding. KVA Matx has just launched the HERE THERE project which will investigate what it might mean for architecture if we no longer separate the ways in which we design and make things ‘here’ and ‘there’. 47

I would like to think that KVA Matx would continue to create ideas and designs for next generation urban infrastructure. This project will involve exploring how urban digital layers are merging with the digitization of nature and how the agency of environmental actors such as tides, wind, plant materials and rivers might be engaged in urban design and architecture. It will also leverage big data in and for shared public experiences and to explore what being collective might mean in rapidly urbanizing cities and regions. How can we, as designers, educate non-designers to care about the design? I have heard it said that the general public would not understand or appreciate ideas in architecture. More than once I have been told by editors and other well-intentioned persons to ‘dumb down’ the message and use simple language so that people can better understand. Jargon is not helpful because it obscures meaning. But if architects dumb down the ideas then we run the risk to reduce their power and the urgency for change. It is incumbent upon us, as architects, to make the case for design at all stages of a project. This is not easy; it is not a matter of force or of becoming adept at ‘selling’ architecture. Design itself is most persuasive when people want it; when they recognize that there is a quality of space, a new opportunity to do something diﬀerently or an innovation that provides a unique experience that only that particular design can provide. Architects need to educate non-architects about the value of design and design thinking, but we also need to educate ourselves. We need be able to articulate the ideas that drive our work. Architects should be able to present an idea in its core essence. Each design option at a presentation or internal pin up and each project

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l The Chrysanthemum Building model with ironwork facade inspired by the chrysanthemum flower and its agency as an environmental remediator

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itself should have a name, not just a job name, that gets at the heart of the concept in no more than a few words. This is more diďŹ&#x192;cult that it sounds, but when ideation is an integral part of practice at every level, it enables the architect to take responsibility to contribute to public discussion in all of its many forms of expression. Finally, I do not think we can complain about architecture losing relevancy if our own ideas are not relevant! Our ideas and interests in architecture must be our own, authentic to who we are, but they also need to resonate on larger levels. Never underestimate the power of the architectural imagination as a form for agency. The education and experiences that we get as architects provide us with a unique way of thinking that is going to be increasingly important in the creative economy. If young architects can find a way to do their research and do work that interests themâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and if they can find a way to intersect those interests and motivations with larger issues in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;then so much the better. ll

1985

1966

Beverly A. Willis begins her career in 1954 in Hawaii as a painter and multi-media artist. She obtains her license in 1966, and is running a 35-person firm, Willis + Associates, Inc, ten years later. In 2002, she establishes the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, which continues today, working to ensure women’s work in architecture is acknowledged, respected, and valued.

Norma Merrick Sklarek is the first African American woman in the U.S. to form her own firm, Siegel-Sklarek-Diamond. She is also the first African American woman to be licensed in the U.S. and to be inducted as a fellow of the AIA in 1980.

In 1981, Maya Lin, an undergraduate at Yale University, wins the competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In 2007, it ranks tenth on the List of America’s Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

1974

Women make up of registered U.S. architects in 1988

Muriel Cooper, design director at MIT Press, becomes one of the first designers to set her own type on a computer, using an IBM system to design Herbert Muschamp’s collection of essays.

A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES RISE

“Every memorial in its time has a diﬀerent goal.” Maya Lin

Humanitarian Design A conversation with Julia King, PhD Honored as the 2014 Emerging Woman Architect of the year by Architect Journal, King focuses on advancing urban development in destitute communities. She is a sole practitioner in both London and Delhi. Why did you first become interested in architecture? I first became interested in architecture in 1999, while I was still in high school. That December, torrential rains and flash floods killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed entire villages along the northern coast in the neighboring state of my home city, Caracas. The following summer, I was lucky enough to spend some time with architects in Caracas who were testing innovative housing models to build new homes, but also to serve as temporary homes for the thousands of people displaced. Working with them oﬀered an incredible insight into the cultural implication of design and the potential for architecture as an enabling agent. I also spent some time with my sister, whose boyfriend and now husband was studying architecture up in Scotland. He was making a physical model of a building, and I remember thinking, "This is something you can do at university: cutting out pieces of card and making stuﬀ! Brilliant!" This perhaps was in tune with my anal retentive personality. What drove you toward the type of work that you do? Where did you start? I graduated from the Architectural Association (AA) in 2007, and I went on to work for the structural engineering firm Atelier One. This

was an incredible experience. However, three years into that I had to start thinking about what was next. I had a very clear idea of what I did not want to do: what I could see most of my peers doing in mainstream practice; but in equal measure, I did not know what I wanted to do. I also had this rather unformed idea that I wanted to work in developing countries - particularly India

Y/X mid-(in my 20s)-life crisis, when I was trying to figure out what to do, I got oﬀered, by Maurice Mitchell, a full scholarship to do a PhD-bypractice within his department, Architecture for Rapid Change and Scarce Resources, at London Metropolitan University. This really was the opportunity that changed everything for me, as it was my entry point back to India

“I also remember thinking that the job I wanted did not exist, so I was going to have to create it.” where I grew up - and that I wanted to work for marginalized communities. I also remember thinking that the job I wanted did not exist, so I was going to have to create it. I think I am still very much creating this job (which I still do not know what it is). The starting point was really a piece of great luck. During what I jokingly call my generation

and into the work that I have done since then. What strategies do you implement to unite the large communities that you work with? The key thing here is to work with the right people on the ground. This is a job that I facilitate them to do, but not mine. I will get into this later. RISE

Savda Ghevra Community Septic Tank Project, an initiative to bring sanitation to a slum resettlement colony on the edge of Delhi, India. ll l

How did you find the necessary funding to support work in these low income areas? Funding comes in many forms. In terms of my time, it started as an academic scholarship and then expanded to include corporate socially responsible funds, research funds, and government funding. Project funds come from diﬀerent areas also. Funding is hugely challenging and this often involves a certain amount of cunning and entrepreneurial spirit. Who are your clients? Are they different from the users? There is sometimes a distinction between clients and users, and this tends to color itself diﬀerently on each project. If we look at the sanitation project in Savda Ghevra as an example, then yes, the funding for the infrastructure came from a grant that the NGO secured, but the users also had to buy into the scheme and pay 53

into a long term operation and financing plan. In that situation, the users were clearly also the clients. How does working in the London office contrast to working in the Delhi office? For one, I have a very fluid understanding of what an oﬃce is. For a period of six months last year, I was not in the same place for longer than ten days - working across continents, on planes, trains and in multiple houses. For a while I had an oﬃce in London, or to be more accurate a desk within in a larger space, but now I do not. This year I have started teaching and I am currently doing work for Dr. Suzanne Hall at London School of Economics (LSE); so, I am always on the move working between home, LSE, University College London (UCL), the AA, and sometimes even a cafe. I joke with my friends that this is my idea of a

collapsible business model, but the reality is that it is probably the mixture of multiple jobs, not earning enough, and living in London which is prohibitively expensive. I had for a while last year set myself up within the Delhi oﬃce of the NGO I worked with in India (CURE), and this worked phenomenally well; I was their in-house architect and so had independence and interesting work on tap, paid and unpaid. However, this year due to teaching commitments, I have not been able to travel as much as I have in the past, and so I feel more London-based. This will probably change. I like being mobile, cheap, and flexible. What has been the biggest aid to the success of your work? My relationship with the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE), a small development NGO based out of Delhi run by an incredible woman,

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l Residents of Savda Ghevra were involved throughout the process of implementing the sanitation strategy, improving the communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hygiene as well as strengthening social cohesion

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What is your personal philosophy on the role of architect? I think there are multiple roles for the architect and that they do not come into conflict with each other. For a long time, I had a philosophy that the role of the architect - perhaps relevant more so for the

conditions in which I work - was that which sits between engineering and non-governmental organizations and grassroots movements. What I mean by that, the architect has almost a unique ability to be able to bridge those two worlds: we understand broadly the technical issues which engineers are so great at, but we also get how people use technologies, which is what NGOs are good at, but often do not have an understanding of the technical possibilities. Recently, I have added another spectrum which I find really interesting. As architects, we can link and operate between top down organizations and grassroots movements, which are about institutions. For example, again using the sanitation project, highly local forms of organization rubbed up against government bodies around the issue of soil pipes. Of the numerous challenges you face, what has been the most inspiring experience? I am often genuinely inspired by the capacity of people to achieve when everything is stacked against them. To those wishing to follow your example, what advice can you share to them? This is simple, and when you say "follow [my] example" I assume you mean working in marginalized and contested urban spaces. My advice is to make sure the community or people you are trying to work for are getting more out of it than you are. This simple equation goes a long way. From your work, what would you describe as the most meaningful reward? What continues to drive you? The most meaningful reward for me was when the sanitation project in Savda Ghevra completed. That project started as an idea, and a small group of people made that happen. I was part of the whole process from beginning to end, which makes me incredibly proud. I am not sure yet exactly what drives me. Sometimes I want to prove something, perhaps more to do with personal capacity; other times I just want to do work that I find interesting and challenging, and sometimes, often for fleeting moments, I am naive enough to think that I can be part of something bigger and create positive longlasting change. ll

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Dr. Renu Khosla. What is critical in my kind of work is meaningful access, and this is what CURE gave me. Most of the work I have done in the past has been with them, and I look forward to further collaborations.

Media Representation: How to Gain an Audience A conversation with Angela Brady, PPRIBA, FRIAI, FRSA, FRIAS, FAIA, FRIAC, FBIID, PhD(Hon) Co-Founder of Brady Mallalieu Architects, London As a professional broadcaster promoting architecture on television networks and radio streams, along with published articles in books, magazines, and blogs, Brady is an active and present voice across multiple media channels around the globe. Please tell us more about your upcoming documentary TV series, Designing Ireland. What strategies will it implement to spread awareness about architecture and the role of women in the industry? I am working on a great new TV series all about Irish Design. Our TV series will be four, onehour documentaries to capture the spirit of Irish design in all its forms: architecture, place, craft, and industrial design. The choice of people and their work is interesting and diverse. While we will not need to state,"Here is a woman architect, part of the 28% of Irish architects…”, it will be apparent in the series’ features and words of wisdom coming from our selected participants. Behind the scenes, we have an all-female team. I am working with co-writer and presenter Dr. Sandra O’Connell, editor of Architecture Ireland, the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland’s (RIAI) monthly magazine. We are also working with two well-known directors of Newgrange Pictures, Jackie Larkin and Leslie McKim and a great female director too, Sarah Share. The fact that it is being professionally researched, written, filmed, and presented by women is a good thing. We are all role models in so many ways. How did you first get involved with television and film?

My first foray into film was when the national flag carrier of Ireland, Aer Lingus, asked me to be in one of the business’ feedback videos about twenty years ago. They used to sponsor my travel to Dublin from London to attend RIAI monthly Council meetings when I first chaired the RIAI London Forum. I was elected as the DIT Dublin School of Architecture Representative. When we first came to London to work in the early 1980s, our degree was not properly recognized there. Even though EU law said it was recognized, our colleagues were being underpaid in London. After a great campaign against this, we won! Monica Dunne, my Bolton St. classmate, and I were the first two architects to break through the ‘Catch 22’ system; perseverance pays in the end.

Later, I got a call from ITV to audition for Building the Dream to design a home that could be built by fourteen couples in fourteen weeks! Yes, a reality TV show. I generally did not like the format, and it seemed like a big reputational risk at the time. However, they convinced me to do it. We designed a fabulous threebed country town house in Frome, a small town in Somerset,

My first main television work was when my partner Robin and I wrote the book, Dublin - A Guide to Contemporary Architecture. My classmate Anne Maria Hourihan worked for RTE (the BBC of Ireland) and had passed on my details about the book and its potential for an interview on RTE. This was fun to make. However, I was eight months pregnant and trying not to show it. We filmed during a summer day, and I tried not to waddle too much in my big winter coat. The forty-minute interview was a critical analysis around the chosen buildings in the book. RISE

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South England. While I had to be quite firm so that the design did not get totally destroyed, the teams were great. I felt the show brought the learning skills of building to the public in a user-friendly way. Also, it was good for viewers to see a woman architect in charge of the design and running the project. It worked out well in the end, and we all remained sane. Following Building the Dream,

I was asked to audition for The Home Show, a six-part series where architect George Clarke presented a UK architecture side of improving peoples homes. I was asked to tour six cities and pick out top examples of a large home, a smaller home, and the design patterns for homes particular to their city. It was fun touring Copenhagen, Bavaria, Marrakech, Paris, Palma and Venice. Each had its own unique style. Once again, I felt that I was

able to show people the diďŹ&#x20AC;erent styles of architecture in a user-friendly way. Another significant moment came during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I led a campaign to promote the recognition of all the architects, engineers, and designers of the Games and not just the two sponsors of the larger practices. It was called #Droptheban on marketing restrictions. It was

Brady as President of RIBA at the Sustainable Cities Conference in Ajman, United Arab Emirates

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hugely successful, and eventually the restrictions were eased. We initiated the campaign on Twitter as we had to move quickly. I then arranged film interviews with fifty-five of the architects, engineers, and designers during the Paralympic Games. Out of this we made the short film, #DesigningForChampions, which went around the world via UKTI UK Trade and Investment and the RIBA website. I also personally showed it at talks in the Middle East and Far East to oﬀer a taste of the success of London 2012. It was a real personal achievement to capture on film and in photos the heroes of the Games. Without our campaign, the thirty-five temporary buildings would not have been recorded in this way. I made a campaign dress to go with the banner that we dropped down on a scroll out of my RIBA presidential window. The dress had all the names of the group members and each of their wonderful buildings cut and pasted on to it. After the campaign, just a few months ago, I was giving a talk to the London Irish network and the CEO of the Museum of London was there. She invited the dress to be part of the Museum of London fashion statements. I am thrilled I have donated a Museum piece to mark the protest occasion! My latest thirty-minute film entitled Why Study Architecture-The Role of the Architect was launched by the RIBA on March 31, 2015, coproduced by Colin Conroy of Video Productions Ltd and myself. It is free to view on the RIBA website. The film promotes what we do as architects to politicians and the public, as well as kids thinking about a career in architecture. I have not, nor will not, earn a penny out of this film. It took months to make, but I made it as a gift to the RIBA as a legacy of my presidency. While I was president, I also made a series of In Conversation With interviews with famous people who came through the RIBA door to give lectures. In this way, I tried to make the RIBA more open and less London-centric. Also, to capture the thought of the day with some of the ‘Greats’ is important. You can view the selection on my blog: http://angelabradyriba.tumblr.com/video What other media types have you found most useful for promoting the values of architecture and your private practice, Brady Mallalieu Architects? I am making a Brady Mallalieu video for our website so that I can show oﬀ one of our best buildings in a walk-about. I think people will find this easier to understand than just still photos. At Eco Build I often do a five-minute camera piece

on anything new I have seen. We still make a twentypage brochure if going to shows like MIPIM in the south of France, the biggest EU trade fair. Also, Eco Build is another way to show your projects in print form or when giving a talk. I also have been to the World Architecture Fair and the Aga Khan Awards, all very international and grand events. It is good to get an international perspective on your own work and others’ work. Another media outreach that I was invited to take part in is the ‘live stories’ at the British Library. The Lives of Architects series discusses what it is like to be an architect today, and it goes back to childhood influences to the present day. It is ten hours long! It is good to be alongside Sir Terry Farrell and other interesting architects. Which is more effective: content or presentation? People like to hear the accent of a person or see how they present their ideas in conversation. It brings the written word to life and is easily accessible. More and more, people read less and want to see the real thing on video with visual images if they cannot be there themselves. From your experience as an active media figure, how do you perceive popular media currently framing the female role? It is a great place for women to be because they have great communication skills and are great writers and presenters. Also their higher voices carry better too, apparently. However, there are not enough women over forty on the air, and the BBC are trying to address this. Quiz shows and debates are all too men-heavy. I often will not attend a conference if there is not a good line up of women speakers, and I will let them know why I will not be there. Twitter is a great platform for this. While president of the RIBA, I made sure all my speaking and judging panels had a fifty-fifty gender representation. How does popular media currently portray architecture and the female architect? It is improving as women are more active. Just keep it up and do not be shy; the lads certainly are not. If you are proud of one of your projects, put it out there. Women need a confidence boost and other women are best to advise them, so do it. As you became more active in TV and radio broadcasting, what was a memorable challenge you had to overcome? RISE

Angela poses in her #DesigningForChampions campaign dress ll l

I think Building the Dream was the biggest challenge because TV crews and producers are always trying to get you to make a mistake, or get you into an argument, or stereotype you as being an arrogant architect that cannot speak plain English; still true of many, sad to say. I have been very lucky because my material is rarely controversial. You have to be careful with your facts without seeming too bland either. How might the architecture and design community unite to influence popular media to incorporate design values into their broadcasts and programs? I think Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are all popular for simple messages and exchanges. I think the power of Twitter can be good once you have over ten-thousand followers. If you are not getting a good service or have a duﬀ product and are having problems with it,

a threat of Twitter action has amazing results. It is the same with campaigns; you can reach a lot of people quickly and link to their networks. A word of warning though, be careful of the content you retweet, as anything inaccurate could be libelous. Also, take care of spelling and never tweet when you have been drinking at a party. This could be disastrous. It is great to show oﬀ your own projects; not blatantly as “Look what we have done!” but more like pointing out a feature that you like about a material you have used or the way it catches the light. I keep my business Twitter @BradyMallalieu separate from my own name on Twitter @AngelaBradyRIBA. Content is either straight business or campaigning for Women in Architecture and women's issues or environmental interests. It can become addictive so better to do it in the morning and the evening RISE

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WIA events and give advice as an experienced architect. I always say to people: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do not accept low pay or unpaid internships.â&#x20AC;? This is something I banned for RIBA members when I was president. I even managed to persuade two architectural magazines to do the same; when they were criticizing that this would never happen, I said they need to look at themselves and set an example, which they did.

I think bringing the message that architecture and the built environment are not rocket science, and I hope to give people a better understanding of design and how good design matters. More women need to be involved to explain it and have fun with it. My mantra remains the same today as it did twenty years ago: women and men together, make the best architecture, places and spaces.

I do not consider myself a media figure as such, but I do enjoy working in it because I am not camera shy nor afraid to speak my mind. After the past four years of doing at least fifty talks a year, I am a confident speaker, and I like to advise others who need that extra bit of confidence to go out there and be themselves. They can then talk with passion about their subject, and that will give them the confidence to warm to an audience.

People often recognize me at architectural events. It is often hard to remember their names, but I always remember a face. Luckily, I have a lot of Irish pals who keep me in check, and they know they cannot take me too seriously. The Home Show is still on repeat on HOME TV, so I often get people asking if am I on The Home Show, and it brings a smile to my face.

We need to make decisions that will be long term because we have a fragile world in which we play a major part. I continue to promote low-carbon buildings and try to get people more in touch with nature. ll

I still speak a couple of times a month, and I do like to speak at

Lastly, what has been the most meaningful reward from your experience as a media figure?

for ten minutes or so. I will never tweet about cats. Design values need to be shown in real situations that we care about, and that might be showing how good design improves lives. This is one angle we will take up with our new TV series. How have relationships evolved from being a media figure?

Check out Angela Brady PPRIBA on Twitter: @AngelaBradyRIBA

Pantry in small space

Could something like this work

Mom might like this

Backsplash

Mom likes this color. Might like the

Built in under window with big

Bedroom closet

bathroom like this

farmhouse table in living room

Protect the kiddos

Wrap kitchen island around wood

around the wood stove to make it safe to near but not touch?

Loft in front room?

stove

Two levels of lofts with storage under

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Tiny loft is cozy

Put a loft in the small bedroom over

For by the front door of the cabin

the bathroom?

l Unearthing the meaning of clientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; photos is the first step to designing a unique home

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Rebecca Riden, AIA Prairie Village, Kansas Sole practitioner since 1996, Riden designs homes throughout the Midwest. She has been featured on HGTV and in numerous publications for her award-winning residential projects.

Show me the pictures! Entering into the discussion with Pinterest likes, Houzz albums, bankers boxes filled with postit noted books, jumbled poster boards, dog-eared magazines, scrapbooks, graph paper plans and even once a scaled model, clients know what they want picture by picture, idea by idea, and item by item. Many have tried to piece it all together only to give up and call in a professional. That is where I come in, the architect who designs custom homes, the translator of ideas into plans. The first look at these images feels as if opening a gift. What is it? What could it possibly be? The ideas behind the images are always unique and carefully selected by the future residents. How do all the bits of information get translated into a set of plans that get a house built? How does a project stay on track and not derail with the constant addition of new images on home design sites and Google 24/7? Time and conscientious selections give clients a huge head start on the design process. In most cases, the dream house living in their head has been there quite some time. I once had a client provide a faded ten-yearold newspaper article. Excited yet anxious to hand it all over, they are eager to see their carefully selected answers magically combined into a home plan. They 63

are curious about what I think of their ideas and what I will design especially for them. Some clients are reluctant to hand over a scrapbook or file. Moving their dream home into reality is a potentially scary first step. If that is the case, I suggest they take more time to review, arrange and note what they enjoy about their photos. My clients want an original home. All my house designs are uniquely crafted to my clients’ needs, wishes and specific land, property or lot. I never repeat plans or sell plans for built homes. I am hired to create cohesive homes out of a jumbled set of images. I love looking through it all, trying to decipher common themes - likes and dislikes - finding unique yet uniform qualities to tell the story of their home. Sometimes it is a puzzling mess with pictures that have absolutely no relation to one another. . . Is it the windows? Amount of daylight? Cabinet stain? Sink? Paint color? I ask many questions, too many questions sometimes. “I like it” is a common, yet vague and unhelpful answer. I press why? “Feels good.” Another why? They often do not know or cannot explain in words. Sometimes there are way too many features in the pictures pinned, liked, shared or saved; a dizzying amount of details that would create a discombobulated monstrosity if all were

incorporated. The more the merrier when looking at images and ideas actually works for me. I can sort through many images and winnow them down with questions. If pictures are too similar, I will play an elimination game, showing the client two similar pictures and asking which one they prefer. I keep the one they liked and compare with another picture, quickly going through stacks of pictures. If a client hesitates, I save those pictures for a ‘retry’ or double-elimination round. I find it fascinating why pictures are selected. Here I am thinking it was selected for the overall massing, design aesthetic, relationship to the site, and alas, it was paint color. Good to know! With that information, I do not veer oﬀ in the wrong design intention. Sometimes I am not the first architect on the scene; however, my goal is to be the last. I want a home to make it over the finish line by moving from paper to finished construction, including a Christmas tree lit in the corner. Occasionally clients will show me previous architects’, home designers’ or even canned internet plans and ask me what I think. They ask, “What should we do?” Every time I reply, “Why was it not built?” To be fair, all the plans are usually good to go in a generic fashion; the glitch is the lack of confidence that the design fits their needs or dreams.

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Residential Design: Translating Ideas into Plans - Uncovering Meaning In Process

Involving the owner in the design process encourages feedback, which assures the client that their home is being tailored to them. “I’ll know what I like when I see it.” A lack of information is disconcerting. During the preliminary introductory conversations, I carefully ask what the potential client has collected or done so far. The “It’s all in my mind. …I’ll know what I like when I see it” or “Do I have to pay you if I do not like it?” are red flags. Minimal eﬀort but expecting success leads to unrealistic expectations. Although wide open design parameters may seem like an architect’s dream, it is very diﬃcult when everything is in play. I do not mind augmenting or suggesting notions based on given material, but I do not enjoy coming up with the entire story for a project. It just is not my wheelhouse to design without fully understanding a client’s vision. Everyone has heard of the Runaway Architect. The runaway architect meets with a client once or twice, and then ‘Poof!’ the house is done with zero input from the future occupant. Some clients fear this happening and want to know how to avoid it. I believe it is timing, a jet lag issue. A house design needs to evolve. In a wacky tortoise and hare way, the faster we go, the longer it will take to catch up. We must take a leisurely pace with our process to allow the emotional side of home design to catch up with the black and white scaled plans.

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l Facade study sketches

I encourage a great deal of “Why don’t you sleep on that and call/email in the morning,” discouraging snap decisions of a plan or exterior. By starting with a plan sketch and carefully adding more and more detail once key

decisions are made provides the client with confidence that their needs have been listened to. The ‘do not go there’ list. In addition to a wish list, every project has an equally important ‘do not list.’ The list can be very specific from “Please no sink in an island” to a vague “I do not like a kitchen at the front of the house.” I listen and provide options to accommodate the ‘do not list’, yet some items cannot be avoided. It takes heroics to elude some, only to have them be the elephant in the room as we dig deep to learn why some ideas will not ever be acceptable. Surprisingly, many originally banished ideas do work and are incorporated into a successful home in the end. Dislikes can hinder a house design unless fully understood. A client needs to explain blanket dislikes before these options are discarded. All decision makers need to be at design meetings. Sounds simple enough, right? In reality, not so much, as there are often influential family members and friends who will offer opinions without seeing the whole picture or understanding the design intent. It can cause clients to second guess themselves. It can be a cast of thousands with well-meaning sisters, neighbors, cabinet makers, tile installers, and so on offering suggestions. Television channels are devoted to home design 24/7. Everyone who has the experience of living in a home will offer an idea. Sometimes the opinions come from someone wanting to live vicariously through the design process. They want to build the home in their head and will offer their often very different ideas to a client. If their ideas and opinions are important to the client, they need to be involved from day one of the initial design meetings, or RISE

So…how hard can it be to design a house? Residential design is challenging because it is personal, funded by hard-earned money and not a building used to make money by providing a product or service. The personal nature of a home makes it significantly more emotional and tricky on many levels. These homes have been living in clients’ minds for many years. The majority of commercial clients rarely lose sleep over the size of a room or a detail they forgot to mention; in contrast, residential clients tend to fret. A home is a very personal expression of their values, hopes and dreams. They want it just right. Getting to ‘just right’ involves the not-so-easy chore of telling it like it is. I am hired to give my design opinion and expertise. Once we have narrowed the stack of favored images, there are often images that do not mesh. They just do not play well together. A gable roof versus hips, modern versus traditional or pictures that represent a much bigger house than budget or desired function allows. In this case, I tell like it is: “We need to sort out what you say you want versus what we are looking at.” I have clients with little desire for second floors or stairs in general, but will hand me pictures and links to two-story colonial homes. This represents 65

a disconnect between wants and needs. Generally, we will talk through the options and how this particular idea may not work for their wishes. For a renovation, unless it is a complete tear-down, a modern ranch will not easily transition into traditional center hall colonial. These situations present a chance to help the client understand what they have and where they can expect to go based on the structural bones of their existing home. Oﬀering a quick history of the American house is helpful as some clients may not know the progression. McMansions and many builder homes have little connection to a region or history, but are exactly what a client has experienced. They may not know what is even possible! For example, a nondescript, hipped-roofed ranch trying to become Arts & Crafts is complicated, but could very appropriately grow into Prairie Style. Once ideas are narrowed down, the design starts with the big picture. We perform an initial room layout in relationship to the land. Keeping everything in focus, I develop three sketch solutions to discuss the options, then together we select the best ideas to combine into a new fourth idea. This dialogue helps the story to mature; it is not detailed at this point. When we explore big ideas, we are thinking about what the kitchen is and its connection to the rest of the house and to views, not fine details such as cabinet pulls. Once everyone is comfortable with the exterior overall design, room arrangements, and the location on a property, we can start getting into more detail. It is really important to use repetition with design elements, as it knits the home together coherently and simplifies selecting the millions of items that make a house. In a

‘less is more’ example, if an arch is used thoughtfully for a doorway, then the interior panel doors or cabinets could quietly repeat the arched expression. Even light fixtures could enhance that idea. Having a global idea, such as the arch, or repeated material, such as brushed nickel, can help make the selection process faster when weeding through the endless options available. However, it takes finesse to use an idea carefully and not overwrought. One arched doorway is special, while many can dilute the thought, making it mundane and predictable. Providing a frame work for decisions allows the chance for an owner to express themselves. Instead of being overwhelmed by decisions, they can thoughtfully make choices and perhaps be inspired! I have had clients design and custom-make stained glass windows and tables. Handrails and newel posts are often custom fabricated, too. I encourage items that are used or touched daily to be carefully selected by touch and in living color, not just by pictures. Designing a home can be overwhelming if looked at item by item, as if imagining leaves on a tree without seeing the tree. If the big picture is in mind, selecting materials and making decisions becomes easier. Does this idea further the big idea or confuse it? Enhance and augment or disrupt? The finished home will be enjoyed for years to come, making it well worth the time it takes to make thoughtful decisions. As for all the design-inspiration scrapbooks created over the years, I have a few, but most are cast aside once the owners move in and enjoy living in the real deal! ll

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static can be created. Cabinet designers who work for cabinet makers can be an asset to a project, but if they have not physically been to the home that is being renovated, they cannot understand the big picture. I have had tile installers try to change tile layout or grout colors only to say later that they did not know the cabinets or wall color would tie it all together. The big picture is powerful due to its strength of many cohesive decisions to create the overall vision.

Why Architecture and Urban Design are More Relevant Than Ever Dominique Davison, AIA Founder of DRAW Architecture + Urban Design, Kansas City, Missouri

Through her practice Davison works to improve people’s lives through better design that fosters social and environmental equity. Her award-winning architecture and urban design practice has been recognized regionally by the Mid-America Regional Council as a leader in sustainability and honored as Firm of the Year by the American Institute of Architects Kansas City Chapter in 2014. Architecture is not an easy field to be in...for anyone, let alone a woman running a practice. There are high stakes and long hours, and it seems we are constantly trying to prove our value to a constituency that is often more media literate than culturally literate. Yet, this year is my tenth year of practice in the firm I founded upon moving to the Midwest, and overall, I still love what I do. This is largely because what we do as architects and urban designers embodies a purpose that we are passionate about. I was heartened when I learned that purpose and passion are the number one drivers for what Tony Hsieh calls ‘sustainable happiness’, in Delivering Happiness. Sustainable happiness allows one to weather the storms and also experience elation without the constant expectation of emotional highs. And as in life, there are plenty of ups and downs in the building and construction industry. In our strategy session to kick off the year of 2015, my partner Dan Maginn, our staff and I discussed this topic in depth in order to clarify for ourselves and our clients what our purpose and passion really are. To distill this is not a simple task. What we defined for ourselves is this: DRAW elevates the urban environment through resourcefulness and inspired design. Or distilled even more: Resourceful Design, Inspired Places. Resourceful Design There has been significant work done in the last decade in the realm of sustainable design with USGBC and Architecture 2030 leading the charge, promoting awareness of the effects that buildings have on our environment (almost half of all energy and CO2 emissions are from buildings). Of course

the discourse began long before then. When I started my architecture studies at Berkeley back in 1991, this was the first topic of discussion from our professor Sim Van Der Ryn. Sustainability has become a touchy, if not polarizing subject. However, when one looks at the idea of environmental stewardship as a method of being maximally resourceful, the conversation shifts. The idea is to be smart about how we use our resources, whether economic, cultural, or environmental. Our approach is to take a look at the assets of a particular project and see how they can be leveraged to create the highest and best outcome for the client and community. This requires data and metrics to help define. That is why we are working to develop a location specific, resource impact assessment plug-in for Sketch Up that provides a more holistic view of how buildings perform called PlanIT Impact. We are at the crest of a technological wave where Open Data and broader band widths of Gigabit speed allow that data to be shared. This is very exciting because it allows the design process to become more intelligent and eﬃcient. We can connect to a city's resource datasets through live API's to provide the most up-to-date information, rather than have rule of thumb or more generic information. For example, we are connecting to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's highly location specific data on rain and can pinpoint for a census tract what the average drive time is. Inspired Places Great design and places that draw people back again and again over the decades are not made from data and metrics, however. So to counterbalance RISE

View of Alhambra through the garden grounds back to the buildings. It frames the vista while creating an intimate space. ll l

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l Looking across the hardscape open court of the Salk Institute, designed by Louis I. Kahn.

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the more scientific approach to design that we engage in to maximize resourcefulness, we also must consider the human aspect of what moves us. Many have studied this from an analytical standpoint, most famously Christopher Alexander with A Pattern Language. There is a phenomenological aspect of design that causes spaces to have an emotive response - to inspire stillness, or to enliven and bring joy. Unfortunately, the flip side is that poorly designed spaces can promote discomfort and agitation. We are starting this exploration of what Inspired Places means to us as designers by looking to the spaces that make us feel the most alive and aware of our surroundings - whether the Alhambra, the Salk Institute, or a rowdy outdoor bar in New Orleans - to understand what it is about each of those places that makes them work. And we bring our clients into that process by asking them what they want to feel connected to. Because often it is not about the building at all, but what it is framing that provides an opportunity for the most magical moments. We as architects and urban designers have a duty to be mindful of how we as a society use our resources to build our environments each year - projects that have an average of a fifty-year lifespan and long term impacts. We also have the incredible opportunity to connect people to their surroundings and to the things they love and feel passionate and purposeful about. Thus, architecture and urban design will always be a relevant pursuit. With the ever accelerating rate of decision making and building, this is more important than ever. ll

2001 1993

Linda Roy wins the MoMA P.S. 1 Young Architects Program with her project Subwave.

Susan Maxman is the first female AIA president. In 2004, Zaha Hadid was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize.

1991

Women make up of registered U.S. architects in 1999

13.5%

Denise Scott Brown and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, are regarded among the most influential architects of the twentieth century, for both their architecture and planning, and theoretical writing and teaching. In 1991, Robert Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Prize.

A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES RISE 70 RISE

â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to believe that the world is actually worth your sacrifices.â&#x20AC;? Zaha Hadid

A Process for Well-Being Laura Beth Cochran, Associate AIA Momenta, Overland Park, Kansas So often, life is tallied in threes. Think for example of these famous trios: the pyramids at Giza, the primary colors, Newton’s Laws of Motion, and your own well-being. “My well-being?” you may ask. According to their studies of how people work, Steelcase, a leading company in the oﬃce furniture industry, defines one’s well-being as the whole of three states: physical, emotional, and cognitive. In conjunction with Steelcase’s three-part approach to well-being, I have learned three life lessons that apply to my own sense of strong and balanced well-being. These lessons help me to choose, or to let go of, my worries regarding performance and productivity, and they remind me to keep an open mind as I watch for opportunities to learn and grow.

Lesson One: For your physical well-being, spend time unplugged.

While near the end of my collegiate studies, a respected professor spoke to me about the necessity for an architect to be creative on demand. The discussion illuminated a need for one to be present in his/her work and in its process—using FLOW1 to better understand the creative process and to have the personal resources to do so on a deadline. At the time, I remember that for my professor this required that his days had to begin away from his computer. I have found success in modeling my habits after him, as many of my most creative days do not begin at my computer.

Lesson Two: For your emotional well-being, find good things in the challenges presented to you.

Following my studies, I moved into the workforce with great hope, despite unfortunate timing. I began searching for my first professional job in 2012, a year during which architecture jobs were scarce. However, with patience and optimism, I found a fulfilling and rewarding position at a small architecture firm in Overland Park, KS, where I still reside. An unexpected benefit of not immediately finding an architecture job was that I had the opportunity to work in the interim as a para-professional with a sixteen-year-old blind student. It was an incredible experience that impressed upon me newfound sensitivity to space and its stimuli.

Lesson Three: For your cognitive well-being, do not believe everything that you think.

The profession is very much, and not at all, what I expected it to be. Fresh out of school, I imagined a replication of the studio environment that I knew so well, but with my fellow workers older and more experienced. I found creative energy in my position, but I also discovered resounding pragmatism. Practical consequences weigh heavy on the value of architectural design.

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Momenta designers gather to exercise creative thought at one of Lauraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Creative Workshops I I Il

These lessons have become the measure by which I ensure that I invest in my own well-being. For me, a young architect in training, I am balanced when I am maximizing my own creative energy. While in the second year of my architectural studies, I struggled to find such balance. My life as a violinist helped me in this time of growth. I found that it offered much needed focus, even though I was advised to drop my musical activities so that I could concentrate more fully on my architectural studies. In the remaining three years, I made my musical studies a priority and was wonderfully rewarded. As my musical endeavors became more focused, my success in studio, and in my other classes, soared. I was a strong student and felt inspired in and out of the classroom. In retrospect, I know now that this success came as the result of a great deal of hard work and patience, but I am convinced that my musical experience contributed to making me a better and more creative designer. No doubt, this is due in part to the reciprocal nature of the two closely related disciplines, music and architecture, such that the efforts invested in one were manifested and amplified in the other. Creativity is not always immediately afforded to us; we have to work for it, and it can be enhanced by the myriad things that we think and do, interacting one with another in wonderful and sometimes mysterious ways.

Generally, best practice would reflect creativity in all of our day-to-day tasks, but the reality is that some tasks require less creative energy than others. Moreover, I think it is fair to say that we do not always operate with the maximum utilization of our creative abilities, undermining the potential for our well-being. In order to do our best work, we have to choose creativity as an important part of our work plan, and believe in its ability to do good—personally, in the workplace, and for the client. I chose to keep music in my life, and that decision made me more successful as a designer. As my musical endeavors continue, music remains a vital part of who I am. From my viewpoint, Contest of Meaning summarizes the challenges in weighing the personal prioritization and decision to be productive, eﬃcient, and creative. This balance is then coupled with developing the confidence to follow one’s own creative intuition.

After time in the professional realm, I found myself unsure of my creative focus. I recognized that I was developing two necessary, but perhaps unsettling, habits. I was always plugged in—on my computer or phone, and I thought a great deal about the end results of my work, relishing little in its process. Additionally, I felt that I was not contributing to, and helping to build, a greater level of creative energy in the oﬃce. I believe that architects, fundamentally and inherently, are challenged to balance both problem solving and artistry. They are called upon to be rational thinkers—to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of other persons (within the confines of fee and budget), but they must also challenge their rational predispositions with the professional obligation to innovate, and to think and act creatively.

Hopeful to encourage discovery in the workplace, I looked for precedents on how to inspire innovation, and I found David Sherwin’s book Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills. The book is a collection of eighty challenges “crafted to test one’s design skills regarding everything from visual aesthetics to nuanced business strategy to product innovation (3).” Sherwin’s background, and the text itself, is rooted in graphic design. The book’s exercises are insightful, supplemented with brainstorming techniques and strategies by which to approach each challenge. Each challenge is then designed to be executed within a limited time frame, fostering continued ease with creativity on demand.

As I work toward licensure, I see the challenges in balancing one’s creativity, productivity, and eﬃciency in the profession. Innovative practice mandates that creative thought be a priority.

Having identified my desire to contribute more to the collective innovation in my oﬃce, I happened upon the words of the great thinker and scientist, Albert Einstein. He is credited with saying that he never made one of his discoveries through a “process of rational thinking.”

So I thought, “Perhaps we might practice being less rational.”

In the book, Sherwin argues that, “Rote repetition rarely leads to deep design intuition…we radically improve our skills when we are forced outside of our comfort zone and asked to solve problems that seem foreign, or use tools or methods that seem alien to us (2).” He goes on to say, “You cannot teach intuition in a classroom lecture. But you can become more RISE

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l Free form sketching exercises re-imagine antiquated technology to new products

intuitive by solving wildly divergent design problems in a disciplined manner (3).” Sherwin offers several methods by which to approach ‘disciplined design.’ His brainstorming techniques include Mind Mapping, Word Listing, Picture Association, Brutethink, Idea Inversion, Free-Form Sketching, Design Role Playing, ‘Yes, And…’, Designer Mad Libs, Future Thinking, and Blank Bubbles. In search of opportunities for ‘disciplined design,’ I saw potential for the application of Sherwin’s brainstorming principles to group design challenges, wherein the office might explore and respond collectively to a design problem. I requested from those in the office, one hour of everyone’s time during which we would be unplugged and work to problem solve. My pitch was met with open minds, thus beginning the first of several in-house Creative Workshops. The goal for these workshops was/is to channel the office members’ creative intuition and to challenge ourselves, individually and collectively, to find ideas quickly, practice expressing them, and then to test and improve upon them together. In the development of my own Creative Workshops, I have found Sherwin’s insight helpful, informative, and a 75

great source of confidence. The brainstorming methods in the book provide tools by which to build upon your intuition, wherein you learn to trust your process. Through the Creative Workshop, my oﬃce members and I have used several of the methods listed above to facilitate productive and eﬃcient brainstorming sessions. In the first workshop, I challenged everyone to pick a piece of antiquated technology—out of commission or ‘dead tech’—and to re-imagine it as something new. That was it. I provided them with images of various examples of dead tech (Picture Association) and required that they practice Free Form Sketching2. Everyone was allowed twenty five minutes for personal sketching time. We then shared our ideas and picked the brightest to develop further. Thus, ‘Reel Storage’ was born--a storage/side table constructed of retired film reels. In this first session, and in subsequent ones, we fought the impulse to draw. These workshops are not about clean illustrations, they are about “rapidly recording and exploring visual ideas (9).” As advised by Sherwin, we strive not to draw, but to use Design Sketching. This approach to

collaborative design enables a means by which we can begin, individually, to “design how we design” and then to apply those problem solving strategies to other, more disparate, parts of our day. Within the workshop process, as we assess the validity of our ideas, we are asked also to consider whether or not they

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l Taking time to sharpen creative thought and leave rational thinking aside

are meaningful. “If your idea has deep meaning, it will encourage a more beautiful expression in the final design (4).” This insightful observation is especially important, as the workshops become tools in project application. In one example of a project application of the Creative Workshop, I designed a deck-building, Scrabble-inspired exercise using techniques in

Word Listing, Picture Association, and Free-Form Sketching. Using this exercise, the office members worked collectively to develop conceptual ideas for a graphics and way-finding package. One hour of our collective time contributed greatly to the inspiration for the package and prevented a static perception of the outcome goals. As the workshops develop, their versatility becomes apparent. They can be used to affirm or contest the meaning in a project. A beautiful consequence of the collective participation is that it gives everyone in the office ownership in the project. Working collaboratively, we practice being team members and we strengthen our relationships through design. I also believe there is potential for the workshops to be used as tools to introduce clients to the design process. Additionally, they provide an avenue by which to strengthen consultant and design team relationships. Perhaps the best way to begin a project is by hosting a Creative Workshop with the civil, landscape, mechanical, electrical, and structural engineers all in attendance. Let first impressions be made through design. There are so many possibilities RISE

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for the Creative Workshop, and they multiply as we understand them through the physical, cognitive, and emotional lessons of well being. That said, the Creative Workshop has not entirely remedied my bad habits. My bad habits are still just that. I am, more often than not, plugged in, and I continue to worry about the magic of any end result that I am working toward. The creative workshops, however, remind me to embrace my intuition (with my pencil first) and to look to the strengths and talents of my co-workers for inspiration, as well as my own. I protect my physical well-being by spending time unplugged. In the very beginning of his text, Sherwin states, “Being aware of your working process as a designer and reshaping it to fit the problem presented to you is a lifelong practice that will define your career (1).” Each Creative Workshop works in conjunction with the last one to impress upon each of us the power and possibility of process. I believe that they also teach us to embrace the constraints in a problem, working with intention to make those constraints strengths. I protect my emotional well-being by finding good things in the challenges presented to me. 77

These workshops have the ability to strengthen one’s intuition, but they depend on one’s willingness to ask questions. The first iteration of an idea is often not the best iteration, and, even if it is, the initial idea can only grow from the challenges it receives through continued refinement. Moreover, the sessions have the power to strengthen working relationships—developing respect and appreciation for the creativity in those around you. I protect my cognitive well-being by challenging my assumptions and questioning those ideas I hold as truths. These lessons, re-iterated by the Creative Workshops, have taught me that working creatively, through a well-practiced and disciplined design process, does not negate productivity nor eﬃciency; rather, it predetermines and augments it. We need not find Contest of Meaning in creativity, productivity, and eﬃciency; if founded in the design process, they are self-supporting. Our challenge, alternatively, is to continue to develop our own design intuition and to fuel our personal well-being using creativity. The Creative Workshops have taught me

to focus less on an architect’s obligation for rational thinking and innovation, and more about the process to get there. ll

1 As coined and studied by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, FLOW (a concept in positive psychology) is a state of heightened focus and full involvement in activities such as art, play, and work. 2 Free Form Sketching: Draw pictures, words and layout ideas in a free-form, associative way. Every five minutes, step back, assess and refocus on an element on the page that suggests further possibilities (8). Sherwin, David. Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills. Cincinnati, OH: HOW, 2010. Print. Steelcase. “WORKCAFÉ IDEABOOK.” WORKCAFÉ IDEABOOK (2014): n. pag. www.steelcase.com. 2014. Web. 26 Jan. 2015.

In the Trenches: On Collaboration and Recognition Genevieve Baudoin, RA Co-Founder of Dual Ecologies, Wamego, KS

Often in the design industry, the magnitude of a collaborative process remains uncredited. Baudoin examines a brief history of this pattern and potential reasons for its continuation. Baudoin and partner Bruce Johnson founded their collaborative practice Dual Ecologies in 2011. It is difficult to understand the design process – what it is and how it works. Architecture, like any creative act, does not spout forth, fully formed, out of a single mind. It is also not magical, or alchemical (although I suppose like electricity or magnetism it can seem that way before you understand it better). While it is easier to see the collaborative process that a drawing undergoes to become a building, this is only a part of the process of design. Steven Johnson, in his book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, describes the kind of environment (in science) that creates innovation: “The group environment helped recontextualize problems, as questions from colleagues forced researchers to think about their experiments on a different scale or level1.” He is describing the way in which ideas come about, how they gain strength and grow. Design operates in a similar way, and it is part of the strength of what architectural academia often refers to as ‘Studio Culture.’ Architecture is, by its nature, a collaborative process that is embedded in the way we teach it. It is distinct from ‘teamwork’ or working as some kind of hive mind; it is a dynamic process that becomes more than the sum of its parts. We, as human beings, also collaborate in many different ways – some by chatting, some by listening,

some prefer to bounce ideas oﬀ many people, and others find one person who complements them in a productive way. Robert Venturi has long been recognized – independently and with his wife Denise Scott Brown – for his architectural work and writing, most notably Complexity and Contradiction (written on his own) and Learning from Las Vegas (co-written). Despite his willingness to share the limelight with his partner and wife, working collaboratively, co-authoring, and co-teaching over much of the length of their careers, confusion abounds regarding their relationship and in recognizing the collaborative nature of their work – as a design practice and as creative thinkers. Part of this misperception may be due to the fact that they began their careers independently, met while teaching, and their later projects grew from their collaboration. However, the confusion also seems to stem from the persistence of the public and media to identify, establish and clearly delineate what roles they played in design2. While Scott Brown was educated as an architect, her work is often associated with her interest in urban planning and design; she also became the Principal-in-Charge of urban planning and design in their firm. Venturi was educated in fine arts, and became an architect through his experiences after schooling3. While they RISE

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have won nearly every medal recognized by the profession as a partnership (that has spanned over fifty years), Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1991 on his own4. Over twenty years after this acknowledgment, a petition was raised to give Scott Brown equal recognition for this Prize5. Again, in spite of the support from Scott Brown and the profession, as well as media attention on the subject, the Pritzker Foundation declined to revisit the award6. In light of the controversy sparked by recognizing Scott Brown as a collaborator, I think it is important to reflect on, and examine how architects, and in particular female architects, define their roles in the profession. Venturi and Scott Brown collaborated for over fifty years. Were they so distinct that only Venturi was identifiably worthy of the Pritzker? What does it mean to the world to be a partner in our profession? Does this meaning change if you are also a wife? In a recent documentary on their work, architect and designer Lella Vignelli, who with partner Massimo Vignelli were made famous for their design work including the map of the New York City transit system and the branding of American Airlines, describes her own struggles for recognition in the United States: “In Italy, the Women’s Liberation [Movement] was much stronger there, so you were an architect…. Nobody will try and take you down, absolutely no 79

way. So I was surprised here…when instead here [there] was plenty…. There is still now, I think, the sort of ‘looking down’ at women7.” The film goes on to describe her diﬃculties in gaining recognition in her own right as an architect, but also in her collaboration with husband and partner Massimo Vignelli. Like Denise Scott Brown, she has had a successful career but her collaboration is most often portrayed with Massimo first as his wife and then as a creative collaborator, framing her as the supporter, not as co-creator. This is similar to Venturi and Scott Brown, despite their protestations and assurances that they work as equal partners. Charles and Ray Eames make up another iconic creative collaborative that has continually encountered confusion regarding their collaboration. As husband and wife, as well as creative partners, they interestingly came to design and architecture along quite the reverse path of the Vignelli’s or Venturi and Scott Brown. Charles left his education in architecture to start his own practice, and met Ray (who had studied painting) at Cranbrook, where they were both interested in moving beyond their chosen field8. As described in a recent documentary on their life and collaboration9, Ray was most often seen

as the wife, behind the scenes, and if recognized, recognized primarily first as a painter then for any contribution to Charles’ work. For me, there are three potential issues that we as a society (as part of Western civilization and the Modern and Contemporary world) have with creative collaboration, and most especially when that creative collaboration includes sharing a life and career with an individual. First: we have been trained, as a society, to hold up the genius artist as a lone individual. Therefore, it is more significant when we see one person, the hero architect let us say, capable of achieving so much; just look at the way we think about the short list of ‘Starchitects,’ or the general glamorizing of ‘stars’ in music, film, media, and the arts. By the same token we have a president, not co-presidents; you cannot co-lead, regardless of the number of people who may share in your choices. Second: because of this tendency, we as a society, insist on categorizing and identifying who does what; this is also the basis of a capitalist society (not that I am trying to sound like a socialist). Being recognized and earning based on that recognition is the incentive to be competitive and achieve more. We could also find root in our Western fascination with classification (inherited from Linnaeus to Darwin) – knowledge

is found in diﬀerentiation and identification. Third: we as a society do not understand partners that share a significant personal relationship and a desk; they are exotic, even foreign. We have a salacious and perhaps morbid fascination with getting into the lives of ‘power couples’ because we do not understand how balance can be achieved when sharing so much with another person. The same is true for partners that do not share a significant personal relationship – the rumors are always there. What is at stake is the way we think about design. Design already walks the line between (and frequently favors) someone’s cultivated personality and the content of the design they created. Societal designations and perceptions of the term ‘wife’ unfortunately impact the way we recognize collaboration in design. In my own experience, I began by working under two renowned architects whose firms are shaped by their names – Norman Foster and Antoine Predock. Both of these architects have made a career out of their designs and their personalities. Despite the fact that all architectural design is inherently collaborative (between the members of a team, members of a firm, between consultants and architects, clients and architects, and builders and architects), my role within each firm was abundantly clear. Similar to being part of an orchestra (my previous life was RISE

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as a cellist, so please excuse the metaphors), I was one voice working to envision someone else’s idea. While my own ideas could be integrated into a larger design, you would be marked most clearly by being wrong, in the way that playing the wrong note can throw an entire symphony into discord. At Foster + Partners, it was part of the practice to know very quickly what a Foster detail was and what made a ‘Foster’ project. The logic was embedded in the structure of the firm from acceptable imagery, to stationary blocks, to set detail libraries to ensure a ‘Foster’ project was created regardless of Norman Foster’s involvement. At Antoine Predock’s oﬃce, the scale of the firm was diﬀerent but a similar amount of control existed on every project because Antoine was physically involved as the designer of every project. Both of these architects cultivated a certain mythos as well; they are both characters and caricatures (Norman with his planes and wives and Antoine with his motorcycles and shark hunting) that are easy to understand and to translate into their design practices and philosophies. Their architecture is about buying into their personalities as much as it is about the quality of design. My internships were akin to an older atelier system. I was learning from two models of practice built by two renowned architects to frame my own ideas 81

of how to see a project from design to built work, and how to grow a practice. The design process – the creation and innovation of ideas that shape a project – worked similarly in both places as it had while I was in school: good ideas stuck, regardless of where they came from. The figurehead as designer for the firm is a successful and clear-cut model for a practice, regardless of how it might reflect the nature of the design process at work behind the scenes. It was an important lesson for me to learn that their digestible and exotic characters and design philosophies, visually linked and distinctive drawing styles, and extremely clear hierarchy is in part what makes them successful and well known. While I am not trying to condemn this as a career option many young architects choose to pursue for a great deal longer than myself, I was less interested in seeing any good ideas I might have trickle out into the world with someone else’s name on them. I now share a collaborative practice – Dual Ecologies – with my partner and husband. It was not a goal I set out for when I began my career in architecture, but I truly appreciate having someone I work with who is my complement in so many respects. We were interested in creating a practice that could be defined by our collaboration – our willingness to argue, challenge, agree and create work that could not exist

without our distinct personalities and ability to work together. We both (probably wistfully) want to create a practice that is established based on our output – the work we create, not the personas we may cultivate. We deliberately chose to move away from creating a name out of our initials, or championing a figurehead, in part because our work together is entirely collaborative and unterritorial. This unterritorial approach to process translates to our own thinking about design; we can be said to ‘transgress’ into art, infrastructures, landscape or interiors because architecture, for us, has also been forced to define its role relative to other disciplines. We operate within an expanded field, much like Rosalind Krauss’s critique of sculpture in her seminal article of the same name10. The natural environment and the built environment exist in a symbiotic relationship that has become seamless; an environment that exists outside of our intervention is no longer a possibility. Any conceptual notion of what site is today must recognize a larger ecology to produce designs that operate in tandem with it. Our collaboration examines the overlap between existing environments and new programmatic and spatial implants. This thinking spans from the urban to the rural, from the home to furniture, and from the material to the fastener. The need for a construct to be anchored physically to a site prompts a dialogue of opposites - interior and exterior, part to whole, tectonics and stereotomics, structure and site. In seeming contradiction, the heavy ground that tethers a building to site aﬀords the inhabitation of the sky itself. Our practice is the negotiated truce between the heavy and the light, site and building, form and drawing. Since the inception of our practice, we have been challenged to divide and define our roles by both academia and the profession. The tenure process demands an explanation as to your role on any collaborative work, and single authorship in writing is given more weight over collaborative

work because it more clearly exposes what a university may be investing in; you are not hired as a partnership. While this may be necessary for the tenure process, it does not reflect the collaborative nature of the design process and I wonder if, down the road, we will encounter similar ambiguity because we have been forced into defining our roles, and claim proportions of authorship as if we keep a scorecard in our office. In the profession this scorekeeping is similar. Our experience in firms has been different in terms of projects, years, and types of work. This easily provides a client or colleague the ammunition to bias the way in which they ‘read’ our work relative to that experience. I have an architectural license, although not because I believe the title gives me license to call myself one (it was a requirement of my tenure process). I have done less work in ‘practice’ since obtaining my license than I did when I was still earning it. My partner has done almost all of his independent work outside the bounds of what the profession deems ‘practice,’ operating as both designer and builder. He has not needed nor wanted to pursue his license. This differentiation means that any project we enter into of a certain scale will require me to be the Architect of Record. While this may again be necessary for clients to hire us based on our experience or for liability should we enter into a larger project, I believe that this plays into our societal tendency to categorize and define projects based on personalities rather than the quality of the work. Now that I am in a similar position to Denise Scott Brown, Lella Vignelli, or Ray Eames in that I am a creative partner and wife, does this new designation as ‘wife’ color my role in our practice? Am I behind the limelight or could I be inadvertently overshadowed? Can I really be a partner in our profession? Again, for me, these three societal perceptions – the lone genius, our tendency towards categorization, and the sensationalizing of ‘power couples’ – override what could also be seen as a ‘glass ceiling’ for women, especially in architecture. RISE

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Architecture, as a profession, would do well to recognize that these perceptions exist. We, as professionals11, are in the business of creating a role for ourselves that is above those around us. We tell the world what is in its best interest – for its health, safety, and welfare – and by doing so, we (architects) need to convince them (the rest of society) that we know more than they do. By adopting this stance, architects willingly fall victim to the way society perceives ‘roles.’ So, because I am an architect, I must also accept society’s perception of me as wife. Collaboration – the reality of what the design process is – hides behind the curtain of firm names and figureheads. While architecture is fundamentally collaborative, we have done little to educate the public about the fluidity and ambiguity that are

1 2

essential to the collaboration in design process. This is reinforced in academia and in the profession by emphasizing single authorship as the best measure of academic prowess and insisting on ‘an’ architect of record for the purposes of placing legal responsibility. For myself, I cannot solve this dilemma. It involves changing the perceptions of millions of people, and I would prefer to just get on with the work I want to do. My way forward, however, will remain. While I do not see the profession changing or the way society may inevitably perceive me as ‘wife’ first, followed by ‘academic,’ or ‘architect,’ I will continue – with my co-conspirator and co-creator – to work towards a practice based on our work first, regardless of what roles we play. ll

Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010), 61. For example, renowned architecture critic Paul Goldberger’s epitaph on Venturi’s career when Venturi and Scott Brown chose to retire – both retired simultaneously, but Robert Venturi is the one given primary recognition: Paul Goldberger, “A Fond Farewell to Robert Venturi, the Architect Who Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love Las Vegas,” Vanity Fair, August 2, 2012, www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/08/farewell-to-robert-venturi-las-vegas-architect. 3 Venturi Scott Brown, “Bios,” www.venturiscottbrown.org/bios. 4 Denise Scott Brown is mentioned in the announcement as his design partner and wife. The Pritzker Architecture Prize, “Announcement: Architect Robert Venturi Is Named the 1991 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate,” www.pritzkerprize.com/1991/announcement. 5 Robin Pogrebin, “Partner without a Prize,” New York Times, April 17, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/arts/design/bid-for-pritzker-prize-toacknowledge-denise-scott-brown.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 6 Carolina A. Miranda, “Pritzker Architecture Prize Committee Denies Honors for Denise Scott Brown,” Architect Magazine, June 14, 2013, www.architectmagazine.com/design/pritzker-architecture-prize-committee-refuses-to-honor-denise-scott-brown.aspx. 7 Lella Vignelli, interview in Design is One: Lella and Massimo Vignelli, dir. Kathy Brew and Roberto Guerra, (2012; First Run Features, 2012 dvd). 8 Eames Official Site, “Charles and Ray,” www.eamesoffice.com/eames-office/charles-and-ray. 9 Eames: The Architect and Painter, dir. Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey (2011; First Run Features, 2011 dvd). 10 Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1985), 279. 11 I am considering the term similar to Abraham Flexner, who is most noted for his efforts to define “profession” in the medical field. Flexner, Abraham, “Is social work a profession?” Research on Social and Work Practice, 11, (2001, first pub. 1915): 152–165.

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l Julia Mathias Manglitz, AIA completes a punch list review of newly installed copper roofing on the south wing of the Kansas Statehouse

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OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES

Voices of Women in Architecture Charmalee Gunaratne, AIA

“Based on information from AIA National a few years ago, in the United States, women represent about fifty percent of students enrolled in architecture programs, but only eighteen percent of licensed architects. [The number thirty-two is a mere representation of] the large percentage of women who are not getting licensed, being supported, or advancing into leadership positions in traditional firm structures.” Rosa Sheng, AIA, chairperson of The Missing 32% Project 14 May 2014, Architect Magazine

Women have been an active and highly successful part of the architecture profession, but they remain dramatically under-represented at senior management levels and in professional leadership roles. As evidenced by recent surveys in the last year, most notably The Missing 32% Project, women are leaving the profession at much higher rates than men. Impediments to women’s career progressions continue to be poorly understood by both the profession and its representative bodies. The following collection of voices of women in architecture from around the country stands as a reflection of this evolving conversation. As I write this article, I am at a pivotal point in my career. I have overcome many shifts thus far – from getting licensed in Sri Lanka, forming my own practice, coming to the U.S. and having 85

to go through licensing again through NCARB, then finding a new voice in developing a nonprofit for architecture and serving in leadership roles in Women in Design - Kansas City. My love of the profession has flourished so much over the course of my career that I now feel it is part of me. But now I face the new challenge. I am ready to re-enter the workforce as a registered architect, but I have found myself saddled with insecurities that I did not picture myself having when I graduated, with a great ambition to change the world with architecture. How do I move forward? How do I restart here, and is this all worth it? To answer these questions and reconnect with my network of women in architecture, I decided to use this article as a starting point to understand why some women leave architecture while others remain, and the impact of

experience on both choices. Some left very early in their professional life, after graduating or after a few years working as an intern. Some left after having children; some left after years of frustration; some held on, and some moved through the ranks. The intention of this collection of personal experiences is to inspire the woman architect who is herself at a pivotal moment, making a career decision. My hope is that these stories provide a personal connection, and that she will recognize she is not alone – and that she will march on in the direction she chooses to go. So why did they leave? Expectations of the profession Some responded that they did not get adequate career guidance when they were making career choices in high school. Some

women were disappointed to receive few or no chances to contribute to projects, while they saw male interns with similar experience getting ahead. One mentioned that not having a female role model was one of the reasons she chose a different path. Some left soon after they realized that architecture was not for them, mentioning that they did not see their career in architecture to be promising. Some also feel they are merely taking sabbatical leave, rather than leaving the profession altogether. Graduate Architect: Architecture has taught me many things. The most important thing is to think outside the box. When I was in architecture school, studying architecture was fun and challenging, filled with new ideas and enthusiasm. After graduation when I started looking for a full time job, I was mainly offered desk jobs. The culture and enthusiasm we had during school was nowhere to be found in small–town Indiana. Soon, we started our family, and I do not think I could find the satisfaction and fulfillment I found in raising a family by working a field job. All in all, I would love to go back to architecture in the future and join a group of people where I can make a difference. Graduate Architect: I have always had the bigger picture in mind. I was always more enchanted with running my own company, which was always going to be more than just a pure architecture firm. Once I got into the business side, it just confirmed that my passion was for setting the direction of my company, not the design details. I love the world of architecture,

how it shapes our lives and pushes boundaries. I have a deep respect for architects and their sensitivity when they design. But my place is to speak the language of architecture and translate it into a bigger picture. I work to maximize and balance the client’s program with the potential of the architecture. This is what I am good at, and this is the role that excites and drives me everyday.

gradually became more aligned with my values, I never had a manager, partner, or even head of a firm that I aspired to be like on both a professional and personal level. If I had, and if that person had taken an interest in my career, I may have stayed in architecture long enough to reach the position that was a good fit for my skills.

Graduate Architect: I have considered leaving architecture temporarily, but not permanently. I personally find it beneficial to take a break from the routine of deadline after deadline in order to get a diﬀerent perspective on the basics of how people live and what they need. Whether the break is a few months or a few years, I do not consider a sabbatical as leaving architecture necessarily because when you see and think like an architect, you are continuously evaluating and gaining an understanding of our world and built environment. Also, many women have chosen to stay involved in architecture without following the traditional career path. Because women are still a minority in architecture, I admit to feeling like I cannot leave the profession on account of the women that have paved the way for us to be equal. I have to remind myself that we do not have to be career women to prove we can do it. Every person (man or woman) should have the choice to be involved in the capacity they desire.

Another reason women leave the profession is the lack of support with flexible work schedules once they have children. Architecture at the highest level demands a lot of time, as we all know, but the pay does not always balance the time demands.

Registered Architect: The years of working as an intern were very diﬃcult for me. I never had a mentor nor role model in architecture. Even though my experience in architecture

Family and Balance

If they choose to stay, getting licensed is another stressful period, where they work in the oﬃce while trying to study and pass all the exams. If they are full–time working mothers and have not started taking tests, it is very hard to complete the licensing exams and they fall behind. Some women questioned the chances of promotion for women with children. Are chances much better for the woman who has already proved to her employer that she is a valuable staﬀ member in the company before having children, compared to one who has yet had a chance to prove herself? Registered Architect: My oneword answer to your question about why women leave architecture would be ‘kids!’ While I have not left architecture altogether, I have been part-time for the past eight years. I feel like I am behind in my experience RISE

Registered Architect: A friend (architect) of mine told me that her boss times her while she is pumping breast milk. He has decided that fifteen minutes is the time it should take to pump. It is not enough for me – at least I do not work for that guy. Registered Architect: It is unfortunate this is the case, but it is going to take more time for the next generation of managers to understand and accept the schedule of working mothers. I nursed my daughter for nine months and pumped at work twice a day until she was six months old. This took time out of my workday, and although my employer provided a ‘mother's room,’ I could not help but think my boss thought I was abusing the privilege. Once my daughter was a year old, I felt like I was back in the game and once again taking on new responsibilities and growing in my profession. Although I initially had a diﬃcult time balancing work and motherhood, I am glad I stuck with it and I encourage future moms to do the same. Registered Architect: Did I think about leaving work as a licensed project architect when my daughter was born? Of course! What first time mom has not thought, "Am I doing what is best for my family?" To raise my daughter and show her how to live her dreams, I also have to live mine. I love being an architect, and I love designing. It is a part of me and without it, I would not be me. I want my daughter to see you can have a great job and a family at the same time. Registered Architect: I have never thought about leaving 87

the profession, although some thought I would when my kids were born. The hours are long and the work is consuming, but I have big goals and I am too stubborn to quit. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by some great people at work and have a husband who takes care of everything at home. There is no way I could have gotten where I am now without that support system. ll l

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Registered Architect: I have one child, now a sixteen–year–old boy. He is a delightful kid, so I feel lucky. I find my role as a mother natural and easy. He was always around the studio, and my sixteen–hour–long days were interwoven between work and family life. I am convinced that it takes much less time to raise a child (or a village) than the time that is wasted due to discrimination. Registered Architect: It was hard for me to balance family life with work as an architect, so as soon as I got my license I started my own company with a focus in the residential sector. I wanted to have more control and flexibility with my work schedule. The Culture of the Profession If family commitments were the only barrier to success, then

female architects without children should be thriving. Given their ability to commit to long hours, they should be climbing though the ranks, but even here many struggle. Some believe it is the dominating ‘macho’ attitudes in the wider construction industry culture, long hours and low pay that prevent women from realizing their full potential, despite how they perform at work. Some mention lack of recognition ll l

l Architects discuss logistics during site visit of Kansas Statehouse

leads to frustration in their career advancement. Many experience gender bias - how employers select who works on interesting projects and who is promoted. Some believe that, particularly in a male–dominated leadership, the female shareholder does not have equal power in decision– making in the firm. Another issue raised is that due to gender– based insurance, do employers choose men over women while downsizing because employers have to pay higher insurance premiums to keep a woman than they have to pay for a man? Registered Architect: I think many of our clients choose to work with us because we are women, and they feel that we listen well and understand their design needs. We have worked with contractors that can be a little condescending, possibly because we are women, but

OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES

based on how long I have been out of school.

most are good to work with. Registered Architect: I know a few women, myself included, who have considered leaving architecture after realizing our career progression has been obstructed by gender bias. It is heartbreaking to realize that equality is a myth when you were raised to believe it was reality. The only partners with any power here are men. If they decide they like someone, that person can lead any project, no matter their relative level of experience. Not every man gets taken under their wings, but no woman ever has been. Watching great roles go to guys with less experience is frustrating and working under someone who does not know enough to be leading the project is exhausting. Several of us began to compare notes and complained. The response was a combination of lots of dissembling and a little bit of gas-lighting. Everyday examples of gender bias here include interrupting us frequently, ignoring the red flags we raise, and diminishing our achievements. Registered Architect: Somehow I continued to live in a kind of oblivion until only a few years ago. I noticed then that my male colleagues had ten times more work then I did without putting any more eﬀort or time into it. I was receiving compliments and admirations while they were receiving commissions. I did not feel it was malicious, but an unconscious pattern. Then I thought that I must find male collaborators or partners. Still then I wished that I was oblivious to discrimination. The true gift came when I gave up old ideas, the thought that I had rights to things in life, or that anybody owed me anything. This gave me an unexpected freedom. Registered Architect: Basically, men are more likely to be patted on the back and given the credit for a creative idea or design or business success. They are more likely to stand up and ask for the applause. At the micro level I have seen it time and time again where I will interject a thought into a group conversation and someone later attributes the idea to one of the men in the room. Or take the case of Charles and Ray Eames or Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi! This undermining of women's contributions is subversive and not always so blatant, but it wears us down and makes us want to give up. Recognition is a huge motivator, more so than money. Registered Architect: As a woman who is direct and to the point, it often surprises me that our

profession still shies away from negotiating the appropriate fees for our design services. If our profession continues to fail to obtain appropriate fees, we will not only lose bread–winning women in our profession, but we will lose the young males trying to provide for their families as well. Registered Architect: I do not think I have considered any points in my career as a choke point... or at least not a choke point that I cannot push through. There are, however, moments that stand out as pivotal points. Moments where I knew a diﬀerent strategy was needed. What I am learning is those are moments when something has to give. What we have today, now, is a choice. A choice to say yes or to say no. Some moments that have stayed with me include being told: some roles in this profession just cannot be part time, I need to look older, and I am going backwards. I have also been told, “You have the talent to be successful at what you chose to do, and you should take this and run with it.” Registered Architect: I knew I would encounter gender bias, but the people and places where I encounter it still surprise me. Equally surprising have been some of the allies I have found with the courage to confront it. The work is so much more than they prepare you for in school, and it can be thankless and frustrating. But there is always something that makes me realize how many lives it touches, more lives than I will ever know. Like the day I happened to see a little girl walking past a building I had worked on. She was holding her mom’s hand and slowed down to nearly a stop. She was looking up and pointed to the top of the building, saying, “Mommy, it’s so pretty!” Her mom stopped to look, too. Moments like that sustain and inspire me. Graduate Architect: Some women have experienced sexual discrimination at work. Some of them are not strong enough to fight back or stand up for themselves. The architecture field still is maledominated. In my first job after graduation, I expressed my design view in a project, and I was told that I was too opinionated. I noticed at this firm that most women architects had stopped putting themselves forward, or trying to lead, because of the criticism. Registered Architect: I feel very blessed to have never felt discriminated against as a woman or lacked RISE

Registered Architect: I have had a contractor want to talk to my boss about the project, only to be told that I was the project architect and all questions were to be directed to me. Having good male support has far outweighed the negative response in a male– dominated industry for me. When I decided to start my own company after two, five–year stints in two reputable, but corporate, firms, I decided that a small environment with a family atmosphere was more my style. You can design a career around your life or a life around your career in the design industry. Moving to a walkable community and placing my oﬃce in a five minute radius has given me a much happier and lower–stress environment to study my craft and take time to teach. Registered Architect: I saw Madeleine Albright speak last fall and one of the most impactful things she said was: “Do not be afraid of the clock.” We have our lives to make a diﬀerence. We do not have to fit all of it in one day. We have the choice to make those choke points pivot points, and take action. What is next? So what is the solution? Will we be able to reduce the attrition of female students with proper career guidance, more internship opportunities, and more available mentors? Our profession has produced and is producing successful women in architecture and organizations, like the Beverly Willis Foundation. By making them more visible, will students find role models willing to sponsor their growth as well as inspire them? For some women, having children or planning to have children can stall a career. How can we reach to help them come back? How can we motivate them to work towards licensure? Should there be workshops 89

or career counseling available for returning mothers? Or can we create flexible working hours for mothers? Can we truly balance life and work enough to satisfy our need? As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.” To sustain those who stay, should architecture companies create a transparent road to career advancement? Should there be career counseling available? Should we find a way to get firms to assess and implement true equality and parity for employees? As Susan B. Anthony said, “I do not demand equal pay for any women, save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.” Is the architecture profession’s fee structure inhibiting equality? With narrow profit margins, stressful deadlines and unrealistic client expectations, are architects of both genders disadvantaged when negotiating for flexibility? I have been inspired by so many others in this conversation, and if we all keep encouraging each other to stay with this profession, to remain optimistic about our talent and potential – if we all take real action on our choices, we can achieve parity for women in our profession. The time has come for us to ask: “What would the built environment be like now if all women architects who left had stayed, and if those who stayed had reached their full potential?” ll “Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work.” William Arthur Ward

Contributors: Joy Coleman AIA; Dominique Davison AIA; Rachel Duncan Assoc. AIA; Aimee Gray AIA; Marsha Hofman AIA; Christine Kahm AIA; Dorota Lopez; Julia Mathias Manglitz AIA; Dalyn Novak AIA; Samanthika Panditharatne (AIA)SL; Lindsey Piant AIA; Nileeka Senarat (AIA)SL; Krina Shah; Victoria Shipley AIA; Amy Slattery AIA; Carmen Rosa Szczesiul; Zoka Zola AIA RIBA Resources: www.themissing32percent.com | www.aia.org | www.archiparlour.org

OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES

recognition for my work. As a woman, there have been a few times during construction administration where I felt like I was received diﬀerently than my male counterpart would have been. At those times, it felt like if I was a male they would automatically think I knew what I was doing and accept and respect me in my role as architect. That just made it that much more fun to show them how smart and knowledgeable I was; it was a good feeling when I won them over. At that point, I think they respected me more than they would have a man with the same skills.

Listening to Our History: Examining the 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium Lindsay Nencheck, AIA, NCARB, LEED Green Associate AMAI Architecture Inc., Kansas City, MO RISE Journal presents an opportunity to reflect upon the achievements of women in architecture, engineering, construction and related design fields in the Kansas City area since the founding of Women in Design – Kansas City in 2005. This exercise is part of a national conversation evaluating the gains of women in the profession against the barriers that still exist at all rungs of the career ladder. In 2014, Washington University in St. Louis hosted a symposium asking the same questions, using the 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium, also held at the university, as a framing device. The essay below presents an overview of the original Symposium, using the event as a lens through which to view a transitional moment in the design profession.

Introduction The 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium at Washington University in St. Louis captured the transformation of the maledominated design community in the United States. The three-day event drew speakers and attendees from across the country to the city and school. Organized by fourteen female students spread across undergraduate and graduate studios and implemented with the help of their male peers and the school’s faculty, the event explored the realities faced by women in the architectural field and marked the coalescence of a shared narrative. The symposium was the first national conference on the intersection of gender and the profession to be held within an academic setting, but only by a slim margin. Within a month of the event in St. Louis, a group of women at the University of Oregon followed suit with their own West Coast Women’s Design Conference, which in turn spawned events at other universities. The prevalence of student activism and the

rise of the Women’s Liberation Movement provided the impetus for transforming interest into action across the country. The conference featured a body of work previously undervalued or even ignored by the nation’s architecture schools, and publicized the words of female students and designers under-represented in educational and professional circles. At the Symposium, female students created a forum for public dialogue that directly addressed their struggles and their role within the academy and the profession. Their accomplishment deserves its own place within historical accounts of the architectural profession’s evolution. Isolation and Opportunity In early 1972, Hannah Roth, a graduate architecture student, organized a consciousnessraising group with five other women from the architecture program. Her motivations were based, in part, upon her feelings of isolation within the studio system at Washington University.

When interviewed in 2010, Roth recalled feeling ‘invisible’ to the men in her class. Though she considered herself a friend to all, she felt unrecognized as a woman. Consciousness-raising was used as a tactic of the Women’s Liberation Movement, loosely organized to allow women to share their stories and gain confidence1. Their group sessions enabled the committee members to create a strong sense of belonging and identity. Their weekly meetings oscillated between light-hearted socializing and more serious discussions regarding the lack of female role models both within the school and throughout the profession. The September 1972 issue of Forum Magazine featured an article titled Women in Architecture, which cataloged personal accounts from working women. The students wrote to the author, Ellen Perry Berkeley, forming the first link between the Washington University students and feminist architectural collectives. Berkeley’s article put the women in contact with their future mentors (the article provided addresses for each group) and with future Symposium participants, such as sociologist Kay Standley and Bradley Soule. The article also connected the organizers with the Alliance of Women in Architecture (AWA), a feminist architecture group based in New York City. The AWA formed a community of architects and scholars who were already shaping academic discourse on women’s involvement in the built environment. The AWA engaged in the same eﬀorts of networking that Washington University’s architecture consciousnessraising group did, albeit at a much larger and more ambitious scale. Founded in 1972 by Regi Goldberg and several other architects, including Berkeley, the Alliance provided educational and RISE

Inspired by the article, Hannah Roth and Maggi Sedlis, another graduate student, approached the dean of the architecture school with their concerns4. The students advocated for a class devoted to women in architecture – the two-day Symposium was a compromise that reflected the perceived paucity of the subject. Dean Constantin Michaelides wrote, in his memoirs, that he was motivated to support the students as part of a greater agenda: increasing the enrollment of women at the School of Architecture5. By the 1970s, feminist historians like Doris Cole were at the vanguard of a nascent movement within academia. The absence of women architects within the established historical canon became a major theme at the event. Speaking at the Symposium, Goldberg summarized the importance to the audience: “ As a user with no historical continuity to follow, I am rather blind as to my own position. On a professional level, I believed for a short time that what was missing was a role model to give me a sense of what came before me. I was sure that within the last one-hundred years there were women who had contributed to the profession on various levels, and that research would make their work and them visible. Seeing their work would perhaps reveal some qualities similar to something in my work that would set me in the right direction. Few were found in text books, less in periodicals, and almost none as professional educators6.” 91

The History of Women in Architecture The conferences of the 1970s are indebted to the legacy of the women architects and designers who practiced in the United States for generations. Their work often escaped notice of historians – prominent female designers often employed pseudonyms or initials to mask gender – but their ‘hidden from history7’ status created a powerful metaphor that resonated with the female architects and scholars of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Feminist historians like Cole and Goldberg combed archives for historical antecedents, including Marion Mahony, who worked in Frank Lloyd Wright’s oﬃce and Sophia Hayden, the designer of the Women’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 18938. The breadth of work produced by these women during this period far exceeded the ‘domestic’ expectations of 19th century writers like Catherine Beecher, author of The American Woman’s Home9. Historians uncovered evidence that the desire for community and continuity spurred action dating back to the early 1910s with the formation of Alpha Alpha Gamma (AAG). The sorority10 was founded by a group of women architecture students at, coincidentally, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Minnesota in 1915 for, “mutual encouragement and the exchange of ideas among women in architecture and related arts11.” In the next few decades, the organization expanded into five other schools and added a professional branch12. During the interwar years, Alpha Alpha Gamma provided an intellectually cohesive, though geographically atomized, forum for American women architects and architectural students.

Mary Lou Drosten, an AAG alumna and St. Louis architect, reflected upon the diminished presence of women in architectural schools across the country during her brief speech on Alpha Alpha Gamma at the 1974 Symposium: “Believe it or not, during the ‘50s and early ‘60s, and particularly during that beat era of the early ‘60s, there were not five [women] in undergraduate schools, so that one by one the undergraduate chapters dropped out13.” The original chapter in St. Louis closed in 1966, funneling its resources into scholarships for female students, though its members continued to meet informally. The AAG’s last branch would eventually gain new prominence as the Los Angeles chapter of the Association of Women in Architecture, but the group’s presence at Washington University faded14. The program from the 1974 Symposium carries no mention of Drosten, indicating that her speech was an impromptu addition to the weekend’s proceedings. The student organizers, who had so carefully crafted the sequence of lectures, panel discussions and workshops, were unaware that the University had once housed a nationallyrecognized advocacy group. Activism and Involvement Although the legacy established by female practitioners would eventually be reclaimed by scholars and feminist architects during the 1970s, architecture students saw few examples of women’s contributions to the built environment. Instead, they recalled the culture of activism that permeated Washington University during this time. Many college campuses were radicalized during the late 1960s, the result of both the Civil Rights Movement and

OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES

anti-discrimination workshops for members2. Their mailing list grew each year, and projects like the Archive of Women in Architecture encouraged practitioners to share their accomplishments3.

Architectureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Highest Honors Award recipients by decade

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

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AIA Gold Medal A I A / A S C A To p a z M e d a l l i o n Pr itzker Pr ize ACSA Distinguished Professor

2010 - 2014 Men received 82% of top awards. Women received 18%.

Source: AIA, ACSA, PRITZKER

protests surrounding the Vietnam War. The 1974 Symposium participants engaged in sit-ins, boycotts, rallies and protests dedicated to a host of causes. This activism equipped the group at Washington University with two critical tools: a desire to challenge authority and a network of like-minded students at other Universities. The former is evident in the heated arguments held between audience members and panelists at the Symposium; the latter is what filled the auditorium to capacity each day. The Symposium The 1974 Symposium remains a part of the historical records thanks, in large part, to the eﬀorts of its organizers to preserve its legacy. Although few references survived in academic texts, the women generated a wealth of materials, from pins to posters. Of greatest importance are the six-hours of audio recordings from the weekend’s panels and the Symposium program. These documents make it possible to identify the specific questions the attendees asked, establishing a base-line that can inform the current dialogue on gender equality in the profession. The Symposium’s program records a full schedule of lectures, workshops and social events. Students organized a month-long exhibition of projects from students and professionals, prefiguring contemporary demands for recognition amongst female practitioners. Audio from the lectures captured debates on issues that went unacknowledged during a typical 1970s architectural education, while the program allowed the organizers to clearly state their goals: Our purpose in organizing this symposium is to explore the many concerns of professional women in architecture – role conflicts, professional attitudes and design capabilities. We choose this format in order to bring men and women, students and professionals, together from all over the country to examine these issues. This symposium is the first large-scale attempt to begin this muchneeded dialogue, and we hope that it acts as a catalyst for further communication between all members of the profession.” The Symposium opened with a keynote lecture by Gertrude Lempp Kerbis, FAIA. Panels the following day explored the psychological profile of the architect, sociological studies of women in design, and role conflicts between wife, mother and professional. The founding members of the AWA

lectured and led workshops on assertive behavior, discrimination and educational shifts15. The Symposium allowed diverse groups to gather and exchange ideas. Licensed architects, leaders “ from the American Institute of Architects, historians, psychologists and students held court. Judith Edelman, chairwoman of the AIA’s 1973 taskforce on Women in Architecture, moderated a panel discussion. The taskforce published the AIA’s 1975 Aﬃrmative Action Plan, which collated data on salary discrepancy, academic achievement, and admission policies. Women comprised only 1.2% of registered architects and 8% of students in architecture schools. Statistics supported a ‘small but steady’ increase of women in architecture school, rather than the ‘dramatic’ increase many people perceived16. The participants identified several structural changes that, if enacted, would open the profession to more women (and improve the experience for men as well). These were later codified in a Design and Environment magazine retrospective: provide flexible schedules, eliminate the star (or celebrity architect) system, and free firms from corporate and governmental influence17. These three objectives were radical, yet many feminist architects committed themselves to achieving them within their own practices. As Kerbis stated in her opening address, “We must create social change. In short, there is a direct connection between the seemingly prosaic goals of equal pay for equal work, decent childcare centers, and maternity leave rights on the one hand, and on the other hand a society in which all people, men and women alike, experience the ultimate satisfaction in leading a purposeful life as achieving individuals18.” Sociologists Kay Standley and Bradley Soule reiterated the growing demand for change at the behest of women’s groups, particularly from younger women19. Hannah Roth also noted: “The profession needs to change – REDEFINE ITSELF – so that these people can find a place within it20.” Conclusion Articles on the Symposium, from the student newspaper to national periodicals, further spread the weekend’s message and identified the impact the discourse had upon the architectural community. The authors of the Design and Environment article called the St. Louis event, “a wide-ranging, exhilarating excursion into what makes architecture and the woman architect tick (or not tick21).” To Ellen Perry Berkeley, “The importance of the conferences in Eugene and St. Louis, I believe, was in legitimizing the concerns of women everywhere, enlarging our network, and opening our channels of communication22.” RISE

Today, nearly forty years after the symposium, many architecture schools across the country have achieved gender parity within their student populations. Dean Michaelides, whose support was critical to the Symposium’s success, was extremely proud to have “alter[ed] and improve[d] the demography and culture of the school,” as the enrollment of women skyrocketed over the next two decades. By 1993, women made up 45% of enrolled students at Washington University in St. Louis24. Certain issues specific to women in architecture remain, and there continues to be a need for open discussion about both changing gender roles and the profession itself. Though personal prejudices may still limit women in certain situations, the current generation of female architects and designers will find classes filled with other women, and oﬃces with female co-workers, principals, and clients. The 1974 Symposium on Women in Architecture provides an important reference for today’s professionals as they continue the conversation. In the forty years since the Symposium, it is discouraging to realize that much of the commentary, questions and critiques cataloged in the six-hour audio recording could be lifted directly from the present day. The design profession has undergone massive change in the past forty years, yet a disappointing sameness typifies conversations on gender. Job insecurity inhibits the willingness to advocate for meaningful work-life balance or reasonable accommodations for maternity/paternity leave, childcare, and eldercare. Students and young professionals are often less equipped to confront these inequalities, since gender parity at the university level masks the imbalance that remains within most oﬃces, client meetings and job sites. Organizations like Women in Design – Kansas City are critical in providing women with a forum for their concerns and a community of supporters and sponsors. ll 95

1 “How to start your own consciousness-raising group” The Chicago Women’s Liberation Unit, 1971. The CWLU Herstory Wesbite. www.uic. edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/crcwlu.html (accessed April 4, 2015). 2 Berkeley, Ellen Perry. “Women in Architecture,” Forum, September 1972. P. 5. 3 Meeting Minutes, June 6, 1974: Susana Torre Papers (Box 10: Folder3), University of Virginia Tech: founded by Susanna Torre, many members of the Archives were also connected to the AWA 4 Cole, Doris. Candid Reflections: Letters from Women in Architecture 19722004. Pg. 173. 5 Michaelides, Constantin. “Memoirs,” unpublished manuscript, 2010, printed copy. P. 65 6 Goldberg, Regi, “Symbolism in Architecture: A Feminist Approach to Design,” March 30, 1974, transcript and mp3 file, Washington University in St. Louis. 1:29:05 7 Martin, Brenda and Sparke, Penny, Eds. Women’s Places: Architecture and Design 1860-1960. Routledge: London. 2003. P. xi: “Hidden from history” i is a term used by 1970s historians to describe the absence of women architects from canonical architectural history texts, and their efforts to trace and record early female practitioners. 8 Paine, Judith. “Some Professional Roles: 1860-1910.” Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. Whitney Library of Design: New York. 1977. P. 70-71. 9 Cole, Doris. From Tipi to Skyscraper: A History of Women in Architecture. I Press, 1973. P. 49. 10 Meeting Minutes, Association for Women in Architecture, Records, 1928–1989, Special Collections, University of Virginia Tech: Minutes from annual meetings record debates on ceremonial robes, official songs, and social events. This is not intended to trivialize their contributions but it does highlight the conventional aspects of the groups and how they differed from the 1970s groups 11 Berkeley, Ellen Perry. Women in American Architecture, Forum, September 1972. Pg. 3. 12 Stevens, Mary Otis. “Struggle for Place: Women in Architecture: 19201960.” Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. Whitney Library of Design: New York. 1977. P. 88. 13 Drosten, Mary Lou. Panel Discussion, 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium, transcript and mp3 file: the requirements for an undergraduate AAG chapter were low, only five women were needed to form an official chapter. 58:54 – 59:11. 14 Berkeley, Ellen Perry. “Women in American Architecture,” Forum. September 1972: Berkeley included the Association of Women in Architecture in her list of professional women’s organizations like WALAP and the Alliance of Women in Architecture. P. 3. 15 Washington University in St. Louis. “Program”, 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium. Archives of Women in Architecture, University of Virginia Tech. Pg 5. 16 Edelman, Judith. “Trends in Architecture – Architecture: What’s a Nice Girl Like You doing in a Job like This,” AIA: October, 1974. P. 10. Judith Edelman Papers (Box 1: Folder 1), Archives of Women in Architecture, University of Virginia Tech. 17 Article, Design and Environment. Susana Torre Papers (Box 10: Folder 3), Archives of Women in Architecture, University of Virginia Tech. 18 Kerbis, Gertrude Lemp. “Architecture, Male , Female or Neuter,” Transcript and mp3 file: 17:06-18:09 19 Standley, Kay, Soule, Bradley, Standley, Jo. “Women and Architecture,” Journal of Architectural Education. Vol. 27, No. 4: 1974: “The younger women especially are associated with demands for higher pay, more recognition and more prestigious assignments. The formation of some groups of these women – along lines similar to the consciousness-raising groups of the women’s liberation movement – i indicates that the voices for reform in woman’s status in the profession are becoming public.” P. 82. 20 Roth, Hannah. “Hindsight: What I saw during the weekend.” Personal Notes, April 1, 1974. 21 Article, Design and Environment. Susanna Torre Architectural Papers (Box 13: Folder 9) Special Collections, Virginia Tech. 22 Letter, March 22, 1977. Susanna Torre Architectural Papers (Box 13: Folder 9) Special Collections, Virginia Tech. 23 Edelman, Judith. Panel Discussion, 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium, transcript and mp3 file: 02:33. 24 Michaelides, Constantin. “Memoirs,” unpublished manuscript, 2010, printed copy. P. 65

OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES

Within Steinberg Auditorium, the students confronted the limited opportunities available to women within the profession and publicized their own work as designers. Importantly, throughout the event, the panelists, speakers, and attendees balanced the emphasis on the female architect with discussions about the profession as a whole and its impact on all practitioners. Their sentiments were captured by Judith Edleman during her introduction of the panel discussion on role conflicts facing professional women, who noted that: “…many of the things that we dwell on and chew over are problems of architects, exaggerated perhaps, but they are all there and endemic to the profession23.”

2014

2011

Jeanne Gang is awarded the 2011 MacArthur Fellowship for her creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions to the future built environment.

Kazuyo Sejima wins the Pritzker Prize with partner Ryue Nishizawa in 2010

28% 2010

Women make up of registered U.S. architects in 2009

Julia Morgan (18721957) is the first woman to recieve the AIA Gold Medal, which she received posthumously in 2014. She is considered the first great female American architect.

Women in Architecture Fund (WIAFund.org) is established. The purpose of the organization is to support women in their eďŹ&#x20AC;orts to make progress, become professionals, and become leaders in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s field of architecture.

A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES RISE

“A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably diﬃcult.” Melinda Gates

Genevieve Baudoin

Jana BeeTriplett, AIA

Kansas State University College of Architecture

Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck

Genevieve Baudoin is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Kansas State University and a Registered Architect in New Mexico. Her background prior to architecture is as a cellist, and she received her BA in cello performance and visual arts from Oberlin College. Her M.Arch is from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She has worked professionally with both Foster + Partners and Antoine Predock Architect. Her focus as an academic and as an architect is in the changing tectonic relationship of site and structure in architecture, and in developing representational tools and strategies to understand and promote these complexities.

Jana BeeTriplett, AIA, Principal at Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck, heads the health services team and has become a resource for the design of oncology, surgery and other medical service providers. Close to one million people have visited the spaces she has designed for improved health care. She adeptly manages a variety of outpatient projects for local and national healthcare clients. The proportions of the spaces are critical to impart a sense of compassion with inviting environments focused on minimizing patient anxiety. Her approach requires concentration and thoroughly thinking through all options with chess-like foresight. While disciplined, she is open-minded and creative and will improvise to achieve superior results. She designs by listening to her clients and translating those needs and wants into pleasing and functional spaces.

Her collaborative practice, Dual Ecologies, with designer Bruce Johnson, focuses on site and infrastructural relationships and their coincident architectural and tectonic response. The medium for their practice is an amalgam of competitions, theoretical projects and built work. Her forthcoming book, Interpreting Site: Studies in Perception, Representation, and Design considers the relationship between site and architecture through its representation and artifact, examining the methods architects employ in the process of design.

A graduate of the University of Kansas, BeeTriplett has been with the firm since 1996 and has twenty-two years of professional experience. She has served on several professional committees including AIA KC, Jackson County CASA, and the Kansas City Area Healthcare Engineers. Jana may be contacted at jbeetriplett@designwithinsight.com.

Angela Brady, PPRIBA, FRIAI, FRSA, FRIAS, FAIA, FRIAC, FBIID, PhD(Hon) Brady Mallalieu Architects

Angela Brady is a Dublin born and educated architect, who has lived and worked in London for over twenty-six years. She is a director of awardwinning private practice Brady Mallalieu Architects with partner Robin Mallalieu, specializing in sustainable design of housing, community buildings and offices. She is the Immediate Past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA; 2011-2013) and is a professional broadcaster. She promotes quality sustainable design in architecture on television, radio and in the media. Brady is currently making a video entitled The Role of the Architect and made the film Designing for Champions about the London 2012 Games featuring the architects and structural and civil engineers who designed the most sustainable Olympics and Paralympics to date. She is the RIBA International Ambassador to China and a British Council Ambassador to Vietnam. She has spoken at dozens of venues around the world and has campaigned on many issues, including getting more women into architecture and better urban design standards. She also banned unpaid internships for student and graduate architects in RIBA chartered practices. www.bradymallalieu.com Angelabradyriba.tumblr.com Twitter: @AngelaBradyRIBA RISE

AUTHORS

Donna Buck, AIA

Laura Beth Cochran, Assoc. AIA

Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck

Momenta

Donna Buck, AIA, Principal at Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck, has extensive experience in the evaluation, renovation and new construction of corporate and educational facilities. She has worked on a variety of projects throughout programming, design and construction document preparation with budgets ranging from $500,000 to $45,000,000. She is knowledgeable in the procedures of field documentation and construction administration techniques.

Laura Beth Cochran is a design professional and a child of the Great Plains. She is one of four children and finds inspiration and gratitude in nature and in people. Her passions for design, history, and story-telling are exemplified by her love of making music.

Dominique Davison, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB DRAW Architecture + Urban Design, PlanIT Impact

A graduate of the University of Kansas and a die-hard Jayhawk Basketball fan, Buck has been with the firm since 1989 and has twenty-eight years of professional experience. She has served on several professional committees including Treasurer and Chairman of the Personnel Committee of AIA KC and as a board member of the Westwood Neighborhood Association. Donna may be contacted at dbuck@designwithinsight.com.

Cochran graduated from Kansas State University in 2011 with a Masters Degree in Architecture. Following graduation, she worked for a period of time with a blind student; then, thereafter for the Landscape Department at Kansas State, designing print publications. Since that time, she has worked with the team at MOMENTA, a small architecture firm in Overland Park, KS, specializing in educational and collaborative workplace environments. Her published works include the CAPS Student Accelerator: Schools for the Innovation Generation, a storybook about the CAPS Accelerator for the Blue Valley School District in Overland Park, KS, and she was editor for the Kansas State University Oz Journal, v33 augment. She is married to an architect, and resides in Mission, KS.

Dominique Davison founded Davison Architecture + Urban Design (now DRAW), in 2005 with the desire to explore the intersections among research, resourcefulness, and simple, clean forms. Her commitment to a vibrant, greener community is exemplified by her roles as a founding member of Women in Design - Kansas City and sixteen-month appointment on the Vacant Lot Task Force for Kansas City, Missouriâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Environmental Management Commission. Since 2013, Dominique has been working on developing PlanIT Impact, a web application tool that allows architects and planners to understand how a development will impact the environment at the earliest stages of the design process. Linking locally available geospatial data with a developmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s location, PlanIT Impact is able to provide visually immersive feedback in the areas of water, energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, transportation and potential return on investment. Before relocating to Kansas City, Dominique honed her design skills in the offices of Pelli Clarke Pelli in New Haven, CT, after earning her Master of Architecture at the Yale School of Architecture. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from U.C. Berkeley and launched her career working for Daniel Solomon, FAIA. Dominique may be contacted at Dominique@drawarch.com.

Charmalee Gunaratne, AIA Passion for sustainable and socially responsible architecture has been the focus of Gunaratne’s work. Designing a UNICEF funded Children Center for children during the cease fire period of a war-battered zone in Sri Lanka opened her journey to this path. Gunaratne developed Reducing Rainwater Harvesting Systems Cost for Poorest of the Poor Globally with the University of Warwick, UK, implemented in rural Sri Lanka, Uganda and Ethiopia. Funded by Standerford Scholarship, she expanded her knowledge to develop technologies for displaced people at the Environment Seminar & Pallet workshop at Ball State University, Indiana. She is perhaps best known for her role in creating Eco Abet, a flourishing non-profit architecture organization in Kansas City that brings designers together to impact disadvantaged communities. She has been a guest lecturer in Architect of Hope and Professional Practice at Ball State University and also collaborated with the Helzberg School of Management of Rockhurst University. Gunaratne is a past director of the Women in Design - Kansas City. She initiated the WiD-KC Scholarship Fund and Women Principals Group in Kansas City while serving as the WiDKC Director and continues to serve in the Advisory Group of the organization. She is also a recipient of Kansas City’s Central Exchange Scholarship awarded by Kauffman foundation.

Gulla Jonsdottir

Sheila Kennedy, FAIA

Gulla Jonsdottir; Architecture & Design

Kennedy & Violich Architecture Ltd.

Gulla Jonsdottir, recently coined as the ‘new Zaha Hadid’ by the Huffington Post and a 2009 recipient of Hospitality Design’s Wave of the Future Award, is the principal and founder of Gulla Jonsdottir: Architecture & Design, located in Los Angeles. Prior to launching her own design firm, Icelandic-born Jonsdottir, spent eight years as Vice President and Principal Designer of the acclaimed Dodd Mitchell Design, where she was responsible for envisioning and designing numerous projects including the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Cabo Azul Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, Thompson Beverly Hills Hotel, Thompson LES Hotel, Javier’s restaurants, Sushi Roku and Katana. Prior to joining DMD, Jonsdottir spent four years at the renowned Richard Meier and Partners, as part of the design team for the Getty Center in Los Angeles. She also worked as a Set Designer at Walt Disney Imagineering, working on Tokyo Disney Seas.

Sheila Kennedy is an American architect, innovator and educator. With Juan Frano Violich she is a founding Principal of Kennedy & Violich Architecture Ltd. (KVA MATx), an interdisciplinary practice that is widely recognized for material exploration and innovation in architecture, urbanism and the design of infrastructure for emerging public needs. Sheila Kennedy was selected for the peer-juried, inaugural 2014 Design Innovator Award and is the 2014 recipient of the Berkeley-Rupp Prize, one of the most significant awards in architecture. She is Professor of the Practice of Architecture at MIT’s School of Architecture, where she is the first woman to hold this position. Designated as one of Fast Company’s emerging Masters of Design, Kennedy is described as an “insightful and original thinker who is designing new ways of working, learning, leading and innovating”.

Before receiving her Bachelor Degree in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles (SCI-Arc), Gulla studied mathematics and biology in Iceland and took painting classes in Florence. In her career of architecture and design, Gulla has received several awards and is truly passionate about her work with a mission of creating meaningful, beautiful spaces possessing an artistic integrity.

Kennedy’s design work with KVA MATx has been selected for exhibition at the United States Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, the International Rotterdam Biennial, Het Nieuwe Intituut, the Vitra Design Museum, MoMA, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, and the TED conference in California. She has been invited to share her work at the United Nations in New York, on National Public Radio, BBC World News, CBS News, The Discovery Channel, and CNN Principal Voices.

RISE

100

AUTHORS

Julia King, PhD

Lindsay Nencheck

Rebecca Riden, AIA

Architectural Association School of Architecture

AMAI Architecture

Rebecca Riden Architecture

Julia King is a British/Venezuelan architectural designer and urban researcher. King recently completed her PhD entitled Incremental Cities: Discovering the Sweet Spot for Making Town-within-a-City, within the department Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources (ARCSR) at London Metropolitan University. She is currently a faculty member at the Bartlett School of Architecture teaching an undergraduate design unit and at the Architectural Association teaching technical studies; King is also a researcher on the ESRC funded project Super-Diverse Streets: Economies and Spaces of Urban Migration in UK Cities, led by Dr. Suzanne Hall at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In parallel, she runs a research and design practice based out of London addressing housing, sanitation infrastructure, urban planning, and participatory design processes in developing countries.

Lindsay Nencheck is a licensed architect with AMAI Architecture in Kansas City, Missouri. She is an alumna of Washington University in St. Louis (B.S. 2005, M.Arch 2010). Nencheck’s interest in feminism and architecture sparked a graduate research project on the 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium. As the recipient of the 2011 Milka Bliznakov Prize, awarded by the International Archives of Women in Architecture, she continued her research after graduation and worked with the Sam Fox School to establish the 2014 Symposium Retrospective. She has been a committee member of Women in Design – Kansas City since 2012, and acted as the group’s secretary for the 2014-2015 calendar year.

Rebecca Riden, AIA is a practicing architect and printmaker, as well as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she teaches environmental design studios. Riden received her Bachelor of Architecture from Kansas State University and has trained in printmaking at the University of New Mexico and the Kansas City Art Institute. Riden designs homes throughout the Midwest, and started her firm in 1996.

Honored as Architects’ Journal’s Emerging Woman Architect of the Year (2014) and listed in ICON’s Future 50, “a snap shot of 50 young architects who are pushing the boundaries of their disciplines and trying to change the world”, and Metropolis magazine’s New Talent for 2014, King’s projects have been widely publicized and have won numerous awards, including a Holcim Award (2011), and SEED Award for Excellence in Public Interest Design (2014). 101

Her design work has been featured in the Kansas City Star and on HGTV’s Beyond the Box. Riden has won awards through KC Magazine and KC Home and Gardens Magazine. An accomplished printmaker, her prints were recently included in the Winter 2014 issue of Studio Visit magazine, Flatfile Show at H&R Block Artspace, and Kansas City Artists Coalition River Market Regional Exhibition. Riden currently prints with Hand Print Press at UMKC. Proud mom to three teenagers, she lives in Prairie Village, Kansas with her husband, also an architect.

AUTHORS

Nathalie Rozencwajg

Deborah Saunt, PhD

Susan Stevenson, PhD

RARE Architecture

DSDHA

University of Central Missouri

Nathalie Rozencwajg is the Director of RARE, an office for research, architecture and experimentation based in Paris and London. After graduating from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 2001 and working in international practices, she cofounded RARE in 2005. The office emphasizes work at different scales, integrating research and design. RARE was awarded the RIBA 2011 award and the RICS Project of the Year Award for Town Hotel in London and is currently working on large-scale projects exploring advanced fabrication methods. In parallel, the office pursues the design and manufacturing of furniture and object collections. The work of RARE has been featured in a number of publications worldwide.

Deborah Saunt co-founded the awardwinning architectural studio DSDHA with partner David Hills in 1998. The studio has been shortlisted for the prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize and twice nominated for the Mies van der Rohe European Prize for Architecture. Their recent projects include a mixeduse flagship store in the West End of London, housing for the London 2012 Olympic Village, artist studios and galleries, various award-winning education projects as well as public realm schemes for Tottenham Court Road and also the Royal Albert Hall.

Susan Stevenson was raised and lived in the mountains of southwestern Virginia for over thirty years before moving to Missouri. She received a B.S. degree in Interior Design from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, VA, practiced as a kitchen and bath designer, and then later went back to Virginia Tech for a Master of Science Degree with the goal of teaching interior design at the university level. After completing her Master of Science Degree, she relocated to the Kansas City area and began teaching interior design at the University of Central Missouri while completing the doctoral program in Human Environmental Science at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Stevenson is now an Associate Professor of Interior Design at the University of Central Missouri in the Department of Art and Design. She is strongly influenced by her students and her university colleagues in the areas of art and design, geology, biology and history.

Rozencwajg has been commended as the Emerging Women Architect of the Year (2012) by the Architectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Journal. In addition to practice, Rozencwajg has been Unit Master at the Architectural Association since 2004, where she teaches a studio together with Michel da Costa GonĂ§alves. She is an invited critic and conducts workshops worldwide.

Saunt completed her PhD thesis as part of the RMIT Practice Research program, of which she is now an ADAPT-r fellow. In February 2010, she was awarded the Research Fellowship in the Built Environment by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Other than regularly writing and broadcasting on architecture, Saunt currently teaches a diploma design unit at the CASS School of Architecture in London, where she has taught since 2009, and was a guest professor at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. Prior to establishing DSDHA, Saunt studied at Cambridge University, Heriot Watt Edinburgh, and the University of Kansas on an exchange scholarship program.

Stevenson is fascinated by her interactions with the environment, both built and natural, macro and micro. Additionally, she is very interested in the human relationships that exist with and in those environments. Her dissertation research was grounded in environment and behavior theories including place identity, place attachment, and restorative environments. RISE

102

Lillian Cooper, Assoc. AIA, is passionate about people and their stories, all facets of wellness, travel, the natural world, and design. She believes that successful design is sensitive and attentive to the well-being of its inhabitants, it pays attention to detail, it engages the senses, and it improves quality of life. Cooper is dedicated to discovering beauty in brokenness - broken spaces, objects, landscapes, people - and bringing that beauty to the attention of others. Some of the most meaningful moments of Cooper’s life have been spent interning and volunteering with Engineering Ministries International in the startlingly beautiful Indian subcontinent. A self-proclaimed nomad at heart, Cooper finds immense value and inspiration in traveling and engaging with new people and cultures. She also believes that the most rewarding experiences are always both challenging and frightening and absolutely worth the leap. Cooper is a 2014 graduate of the College of Architecture, Planning, and Design at Kansas State University and is now working as an Associate Architect at Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck in downtown Kansas City. She could not be more excited to share these inspirational stories with the design community. Katrina McKinnis began her photography career in the dark room where she fell in love with the art. In addition to four gallery exhibits during Kansas City’s notable First Fridays in the Crossroads Art District, she has also shown her work at the Squid Foo Art Gallery in Springfield, MO, the Stairway Art Space at architecture firm HNTB and at the 2014 Summit Art Festival. McKinnis earned her Associates Degree in Graphic Design at the Johnson County Community College (JCCC) in 2012. She landed her first position as a professional graphic designer at Techcom World Wide, where she helped initiate the creative branch Churn Creative. McKinnis’ skillset includes web development in Coda 2, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, AutoCAD, and xHTML/CSS. She continues to practice freelance graphic design while running her own company, Katrina Elaine Photography. In addition to event shooting, Mckinnis specializes in a range of portrait photography, such as children’s, family, maternity, senior/graduation, costume, and business profiles. A sample of her clients include M&M Brothers Homes Inc., Timber Hills Lake and Ranch Deervine Wine, and Hairpins Salon. Armed with a passion for capturing the beauty of a moment, McKinnis’ creative flexibility is grounded in her diversity of design experiences and training. Erin Hurd, Assoc. IIDA, earned her Master of Interior Architecture and Product Design from Kansas State University (KSU) in 2013. Searching to find meaning by affecting social change, Hurd developed her Master’s thesis to explore education design. With great passion she took on extensive research to understand the challenges students, educators, and communities at large face in today’s learning environments. Hurd was the 2013 recipient of the ARCC King Medal, recognizing her thesis for excellence in architectural and environmental research. Upon graduation, Hurd began her career at Populous, where she designs unique experiential & hospitality environments. Throughout her eduction and still as a professional, Hurd’s particular interest in graphic design led her to seek out organizations in which she could serve at this capacity, including AIAS, Oz Journal, Women in Design, Eco Abet, and others. For two years as a Student Assistant for Design for KSU’s College of Architecture, Planning, and Design, she designed posters and publications weekly for the college. Invested in the continuing success of her alma mater, Hurd serves on the KSU IAPD Advisory Board. She also serves on the IIDA Mid America Chapter’s board as Vice President of Campus Relations.

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EDITORS

Samantha McCloud, Assoc. AIA, is a Kansas City local and discovered her joy for architecture after living abroad in an urban squatter district of Cebu City, Philippines. Experiencing the contrast between the two habitats sparked a deep desire to pursue a career in designing built environments and engaging people with their surroundings. Awarded the AIA Henry Adams Gold Medal, she received her Master of Architecture Degree from Kansas State University (KSU) in 2013. While earning her Master, McCloud led a diversity of enterprises: founder of Women in Design KSU, scholar-athlete on KSU’s Collegiate Women’s Rowing Team, elected student government representative on the Union Governing Board, staff editor for the Oz Architectural Journal, Graduate Teaching Assistant for History of the Designed Environment, Research Assistant for Architectural Argument in Writing, and Board of Directors for the Children’s Feeding Program of Cebu. McCloud serves on the AIA KC Board of Directors and AIA KC Outreach initiative, an effort to increase youth engagement with architecture. An Associate Architect at Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck in downtown Kansas City, she has professional experience in commercial development, multi-family, education, telecommunication, healthcare, institution, and government projects, and project management.

CREDITS

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Katrina Elaine Photography. Lillian Cooper. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Erin Hurd. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Samantha McCloud. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Katrina McKinnis. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Determine the Pursuit. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. DSDHA. Photograph. London. DSDHA. Photograph. London. DSDHA. Hoyle Early Years Center. Photograph. Bury, Lancashire. DSDHA. The Covert House. Photograph. Clapham, South London. GWH+BB. Photograph. Kansas City. GWH+BB. Photograph. Kansas City. GWH+BB. Photograph. Kansas City. Stevenson, Susan P. Photograph. Kansas City. Stevenson, Susan P. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Define the Methodology. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Frederica. (2014). Skyline. [Digital Art]. London: Architect Association School of Architecture. RARE. Davvi Arctic Resort Hotel Complex. [Digital Art]. Gulla Jonsdottir Architecture and Design. Super Club Beirut. [Digital Art]. Gulla Jonsdottir Architecture and Design. Paolo Bongia Jewelry Store. Photograph. Beverly Hills, CA. Gulla Jonsdottir Architecture and Design. Girasol Restaurant. Photograph. Los Angeles, CA. KVA MATx. East 34th Street Ferry Terminal. Photograph. Manhattan, New York. KVA MATx. The Chrysanthemum Building Model. Photograph. Katrina Elaine Photography. Value the Context. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. King, Julia. Savda Ghevra Community Septic Tank Project. Photograph. Delhi, India. King, Julia. Photograph. Delhi, India. Brady, Angela. Photograph. Brady, Angela. Photograph. Riden, Rebecca. [Digital Art]. Riden, Rebecca. [Digital Art]. Davison, Dominique. Photograph. Davison, Dominique. Photograph. Salk Institute for Biological Studies. La Jolla, California. Katrina Elaine Photography. Overcome the Challenges. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Momenta. Photograph. Kansas City. Cochran, Laura Beth. [Digital Art] Momenta. Photograph. Kansas City. Architectural Fotogrphics -Treanor Architects. Kansas Statehouse. Photograph. Topeka, KS. Architectural Fotogrphics -Treanor Architects. Kansas Statehouse. Photograph. Topeka, KS. Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Infographic: Architecture’s Highest Honors. Digital image. Archinect News. Architect, 3 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. Katrina Elaine Photography. Contributors. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Lillian Cooper. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Erin Hurd. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Samantha McCloud. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City. Katrina Elaine Photography. Katrina McKinnis. 2015. Photograph. Kansas City.

Historic Timeline: Jett, Megan. Infographic: Women in Architecture. Digital image. Vitamin W. Vitamin W Media LLC, 15 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. Historic Images by Katrina Elaine Photography: Cover. Kansas City’s Historic Poets District Apartments by Nelle Peters. Known as the “Poets District” because the buildings are named after prominent literary figures: Thomas Carlyle, James Russell Lowell, Mark Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Rousseau & Cezanne. Determine the Pursuit. Longfellow Apartments by Nelle Peters in the Poets District of Kansas City. Nelle Peters (1884-1974) was one of Kansas City’s leading architects during the 1920s, a time where there were very few women architects. Define the Methodology. Ellison Apartments by Nelle Peters at 306 W. Armor Kansas City, MO. Nelle Peters (1884-1974) was one of Kansas City’s leading architects during the 1920s, a time where there were very few women architects. Value the Context. Ellison Apartments by Nelle Peters at 306 W. Armor Kansas City, MO. Nelle Peters (1884-1974) was one of Kansas City’s leading architects during the 1920s, a time where there were very few women architects. Overcome the Challenges. Commerce Trust Bank by Jarvis Hunt at 922 Walnut St, Kansas City, MO 64106. 2002 Renovation by Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck. Contributors. President Hotel by Shepard & Wiser at 1329 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO 64105. 2005 Renovation by Gastinger Walker Harden + BeeTriplett Buck.

RISE is the official publication of Women in Design - Kansas City, a committee of AIA Kansas City. Copyright 2015 by Women in Design - Kansas City. All rights reserved. Views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors and not those of Women in Design - Kansas City nor the AIA. Copyright © of individual articles belongs to the Author. All image permissions are obtained by copyright of the Author.

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Staci Chivetta Rachel Cooper Kristin Goodman Samantha Jarquio Amy Kinderknecht Cassiday Love Lindsay Nencheck Rachel Pierce Darcey Schumacher Donovan Stabler Jessica Symons

Women in Design - Kansas City | Past Directors 2005-2007

Amy Slattery

2007-2008

Laura Pastine

2008-2009

Erin Simmons

2009-2010

Charmalee Gunarantne

2010-2011

Dorota Lopez

2011-2012

Miranda Groth

2012-2014

Darcey Schumacher

2014-2015

Staci Chivetta

2015-2016

Terren Hall

Women in Design - Kansas City | Current Board and Committee Chairs Director

Terren Hall

director@widkc.org

Past Director

Staci Chivetta

pastdirector@widkc.org

Secretary

Lauren Lawton

secretary@widkc.org

Treasurer

Tori Jarquio

treasurer@widkc.org

Communication Ashlee Burleson

communication@widkc.org

Social Media

Michelle Smith

socialmedia@widkc.org

History

Kristen Just

history@widkc.org

Programs

Sarah Watje

programs@widkc.org

Programs

Fatima Ringendahl

programs@widkc.org

Membership

Jamie Picow

membership@widkc.org

RISE

Samantha McCloud

rise@widkc.org

Lillian Cooper

rise@widkc.org

Erin Hurd

rise@widkc.org

Katrina McKinnis

rise@widkc.org

THE CONTEST OF MEANING Women in Design - Kansas City 2015 Edition