Design Alliance Omaha Panel Discussion
College of Arch
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07/31/2018
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Description
As part of the PROJECT 2018 events at Omaha By Design, Design Alliance Omaha is hosting a panel discussion on Architecture: education, practice, community.
For this discussion, panelists will challenge architects, designers, academics and creatives to rethinking the relationship between architectural education, architectural practice and their mutual intersections with community and culture. While focused on architecture and design, the panel will address broader questions relevant to other fields.
The panel is for a general audience of architects, creatives, students, academics, and anyone interested in the intersection of professional education and the broader community.
Panelists:
Sarah Deyong, incoming Architecture Program Director and Associate Professor, UNL College of Architecture
Brian Rex, Department Head and Associate Professor, South Dakota State University Department of Architecture
Christopher Turner, Architect, RDG Planning & Design, Omaha
Moderator:
Jeffrey L. Day, Actual Architecture Co. & Professor of Architecture & Landscape Architecture
Searchable Transcript
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- [00:00:02.910]Okay.
- [00:00:05.810]We're gonna get started since
- [00:00:08.135]I think everyone's here.
- [00:00:09.920]Well, first, I want to welcome everyone to this event.
- [00:00:15.350]This is part of the Project 2018 exhibition of work
- [00:00:20.950]by the Master of Art technical students
- [00:00:24.994]at University of Nebraska.
- [00:00:26.535]That's the work you see in the back.
- [00:00:28.020]The full exhibition occupies this space,
- [00:00:30.571]as some of these things have been move over there.
- [00:00:32.089]So, it might be a little out of order
- [00:00:32.922]and doesn't make a lot of sense.
- [00:00:35.620]But this is an event that we do annually
- [00:00:38.830]in the College of Architecture to show
- [00:00:41.350]work from the Master's program.
- [00:00:44.348]And this year, we decided working with Omaha By Design
- [00:00:49.200]to have a series of events as part of the exhibition.
- [00:00:52.620]So, we had an opening.
- [00:00:55.100]Last week, we had a continuing education seminar
- [00:01:01.011]about cross laminated timber construction,
- [00:01:04.350]which is an all day event for,
- [00:01:05.520]I mean, we had architects, and engineers,
- [00:01:08.807]and builders, and others here.
- [00:01:11.286]And then, this event, tonight is the final part of this,
- [00:01:14.750]which is a panel discussion that we put together
- [00:01:18.620]with a few different people,
- [00:01:21.267]and I'm gonna introduce everybody.
- [00:01:22.100]But first, I wanna thank Omaha By Design
- [00:01:24.070]for hosting and co-sponsoring all of these events.
- [00:01:28.240]Crystal's been single-handedly now,
- [00:01:31.464]kind of handling this while they search
- [00:01:33.350]for a new Executive Director.
- [00:01:36.540]But it's been a really great partnership
- [00:01:38.390]over the last couple of years with the college,
- [00:01:41.660]and Omaha By Design's been really generous
- [00:01:44.503]with the space, and letting us use this for exhibitions.
- [00:01:47.704]And we've been talking about other possibilities
- [00:01:49.850]beyond just the summer show.
- [00:01:53.980]I also wanna thank Design Alliance, Omaha,
- [00:01:57.400]another non-profit that co-sponsored this event.
- [00:02:00.140]Tom Trenolone who is the executive director
- [00:02:03.166]of that organization couldn't be here tonight
- [00:02:05.848]because of a meeting in New York, I guess,
- [00:02:07.704]but he's instrumental in helping put this together.
- [00:02:13.330]And the College of Architecture of course
- [00:02:15.110]is a co-sponsor, the AIA Nebraska helped with
- [00:02:18.450]certain aspects of this as well.
- [00:02:24.888]The exhibition I should say, is curated by Ellen Donnelly.
- [00:02:27.961]She's an assistant professor in the College of Architecture.
- [00:02:30.020]She unfortunately couldn't make it tonight,
- [00:02:32.040]because she's taking Architectural Registration exams.
- [00:02:34.841]She probably wouldn't want me to say this,
- [00:02:37.566]but she's from LA,
- [00:02:38.947]and was kind of worried about driving
- [00:02:40.027]in all this heavy rain,
- [00:02:41.505]from Lincoln to Omaha so.
- [00:02:43.243]I don't blame her,
- [00:02:44.646]she does have tests to study for, so.
- [00:02:48.027]So she wasn't able to be here,
- [00:02:49.780]but for those of you who don't know,
- [00:02:52.840]I'm Jeff Day,
- [00:02:54.107]I'm a professor of architecture and landscape architecture
- [00:02:55.300]at the college of Architecture
- [00:02:58.625]and I am gonna be the moderator for tonight's event.
- [00:03:01.945]I want to start just by briefly introducing the topic,
- [00:03:06.010]and then I'll introduce our panelists,
- [00:03:08.140]and then each of the panelists will have a moment
- [00:03:09.820]to talk about some of their positions relative to this,
- [00:03:14.406]and then we'll have a kind of
- [00:03:15.846]conversation amongst the group,
- [00:03:17.307]and pretty quickly we'll try to open it up
- [00:03:18.680]to the audience and get everyone to participate.
- [00:03:23.307]And it might record,
- [00:03:24.566]we're gonna see what happens.
- [00:03:25.505]That may not happen.
- [00:03:28.561]So maybe you'll be lucky,
- [00:03:29.780]and nothing will be recorded after this.
- [00:03:34.821]So I wanted to start by paraphrasing Rebecca Solnit,
- [00:03:38.197]who is an author who writes that,
- [00:03:42.282]and I'm paraphrasing,
- [00:03:43.882]this isn't exactly what she said.
- [00:03:45.023]"But we know what we do,
- [00:03:46.761]"but we don't know what we do does."
- [00:03:48.810]And I think what's interesting about this comment
- [00:03:51.845]is something that within our discipline
- [00:03:53.605]in architecture and design,
- [00:03:56.026]we're very good at talking about
- [00:03:58.063]what we do as architects,
- [00:03:59.066]and what we do as designers,
- [00:04:00.906]but we're not very good at talking about
- [00:04:01.739]what the impact of that work is on the external world,
- [00:04:06.230]whether it's the communities we're working with,
- [00:04:08.690]the impact of this on culture as it's perceived
- [00:04:11.870]by others outside of our field,
- [00:04:15.263]but even within the educational realm
- [00:04:17.503]in architecture schools,
- [00:04:19.802]we're not that well connected with practitioners.
- [00:04:23.105]You'd think that there'd be a very close relationship,
- [00:04:24.661]and there is to some extent,
- [00:04:26.040]but in many ways,
- [00:04:28.304]we're also talking different languages
- [00:04:30.260]with practitioners and educators.
- [00:04:33.745]And so one of the things we wanted to talk about tonight
- [00:04:35.450]is how do we start to change that dialogue,
- [00:04:42.023]and change the relationship between
- [00:04:44.880]the education of designers and architects
- [00:04:47.640]and the practicing world of designers and architects.
- [00:04:51.780]And I think there's sort of a give and take
- [00:04:54.250]from both sides that needs to happen,
- [00:04:56.600]there's a...
- [00:04:58.560]I'm not talking about this from one perspective.
- [00:05:00.850]I'm also practicing architecture with
- [00:05:03.160]actual architecture company,
- [00:05:05.105]so I have a foot in the practicing world
- [00:05:06.610]as well as the educational world.
- [00:05:10.410]But architecture and architectural educators
- [00:05:13.570]have strong opinions on what defines
- [00:05:16.890]the limits of our discipline,
- [00:05:19.380]and what differentiates the discipline at its core
- [00:05:22.844]from its actualization in practice.
- [00:05:25.070]Sometimes these definitions vary greatly
- [00:05:27.570]between those who operate
- [00:05:29.760]primarily in one realm and the other,
- [00:05:33.300]but both tend to agree
- [00:05:35.760]that our work is important
- [00:05:37.210]to culture and community.
- [00:05:43.470]But we're rarely able to actually see that
- [00:05:46.020]relevance outside of our own disciplines.
- [00:05:48.700]So typically what happens in our world,
- [00:05:51.718]whether it's architects or educators,
- [00:05:54.160]is that we're very good at defining
- [00:05:55.783]why what we do is really important,
- [00:05:57.860]but that's mostly self-preservation,
- [00:05:59.600]and self-legitimization.
- [00:06:02.936]We're not very good at talking about this
- [00:06:05.450]in a way that might be open
- [00:06:06.810]to a more general community.
- [00:06:10.050]So this panel as an idea
- [00:06:13.500]is really a beginning of a conversation
- [00:06:16.982]about relationships through architecture of education,
- [00:06:19.470]practice, community and definitely culture,
- [00:06:22.913]which didn't make it into the title.
- [00:06:26.354]There's certainly common interests here, obviously,
- [00:06:28.550]in the core of the discipline,
- [00:06:31.500]and sort of persistent points of difference.
- [00:06:34.020]It just is a, to paraphrase,
- [00:06:37.452]so my own experience of a director
- [00:06:39.132]of an architecture program for a period of time,
- [00:06:41.100]we often hear from practicing architects,
- [00:06:44.871]"Oh, you guys need to teach more VIM,"
- [00:06:45.750]or "You guys need to teach, you know,
- [00:06:48.527]"this skill or that skill,"
- [00:06:50.818]or prepare students to do exactly what we need
- [00:06:52.550]on day one in the office.
- [00:06:56.220]As if we're sort of a training camp.
- [00:06:59.660]And on the other side, we say,
- [00:07:01.335]well we're talking about the grand issues of the discipline,
- [00:07:04.732]and talking in a very different world of practice,
- [00:07:07.570]and somehow, we miss each other very directly,
- [00:07:11.480]but the odd part of that is obviously
- [00:07:13.770]that the people running the firms came out of
- [00:07:16.631]architecture schools at some point,
- [00:07:17.874]so at some point they had that experience,
- [00:07:20.829]and it changed the way that they think.
- [00:07:23.450]So how have architectural educators and practitioners
- [00:07:29.433]tried to bridge this?
- [00:07:30.266]I think there's a number of examples at different schools.
- [00:07:32.588]We have service projects where
- [00:07:35.270]schools work with communities on designed build projects
- [00:07:39.680]as you might see here,
- [00:07:41.890]or other types of activities.
- [00:07:45.010]We have expert critics from firms
- [00:07:46.440]coming into the schools to talk to students
- [00:07:49.020]so there's clearly some dialogue there.
- [00:07:52.170]We even have architects
- [00:07:55.120]or rather educators
- [00:07:56.280]going in and working with firms
- [00:07:58.030]and doing continuing education types of things,
- [00:08:01.552]so there's definitely sort of bridging
- [00:08:04.540]that happens between these worlds,
- [00:08:06.791]but I think that there might be
- [00:08:09.340]other ways of thinking about this relationship
- [00:08:11.960]so that we get away from the linearity that
- [00:08:15.390]school is training for practice,
- [00:08:17.794]which is sort of the typical, you know
- [00:08:19.565]model of a professional school,
- [00:08:21.232]why it's different from other
- [00:08:22.240]scholarly endeavors in the university.
- [00:08:27.010]But the pressures are actually happening
- [00:08:30.320]throughout other parts of our university as well.
- [00:08:35.408]Programs that don't have a direct connection
- [00:08:37.380]some form of practical employment are under threat.
- [00:08:42.850]At Griffin University,
- [00:08:44.391]art history at UNL was almost cut this year,
- [00:08:46.434]geography was almost cut,
- [00:08:49.212]and I guess we can use Google Maps to get around
- [00:08:50.670]we don't need geographers to tell us
- [00:08:52.610]how to find our way.
- [00:08:55.190]So I think that what we want to get out of this panel
- [00:08:59.900]is really a sort of,
- [00:09:01.160]trying to think about different ways of
- [00:09:03.150]addressing these issues,
- [00:09:06.505]I don't imagine that we'll get to any kind of solutions,
- [00:09:08.670]but maybe we'll have more questions,
- [00:09:12.670]and you know I hope that this sort of conversation
- [00:09:15.350]can continue in other realms outside of this.
- [00:09:18.872]So to begin this,
- [00:09:20.460]we've invited a panel of three individuals
- [00:09:24.500]who represent different aspects of this conversation,
- [00:09:29.380]and really pleased to have them all with us tonight.
- [00:09:32.250]First over here is Brian Rex,
- [00:09:35.090]who earned a bachelor of science
- [00:09:37.890]in design degree from, in architecture,
- [00:09:40.960]from the University Texas at Arlington,
- [00:09:43.848]and then a bachelor of architecture from
- [00:09:44.990]Carlton University in Ottawa,
- [00:09:48.589]and finally a master of science in
- [00:09:50.200]advanced architectural design from
- [00:09:52.530]Columbia University in New York,
- [00:09:54.047]so Brian's kind of been around the NAFTA sort of world
- [00:09:57.150]of education.
- [00:09:58.723]Central Mexico. Central Mexico.
- [00:10:00.614](audience laughing)
- [00:10:04.660]Brian's taught at Texas Tech,
- [00:10:07.212]University of Colorado,
- [00:10:08.136]University of Oklahoma,
- [00:10:09.613]University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
- [00:10:12.712]and worked and practiced in New York
- [00:10:14.150]and other locations prior to that.
- [00:10:18.093]But in 2010,
- [00:10:19.234]he was hired to be the first head of the
- [00:10:21.720]architecture program at South Dakota State University,
- [00:10:24.230]where he is now,
- [00:10:26.712]and this is a really unique opportunity.
- [00:10:28.229]He was hired to actually start
- [00:10:29.633]a brand new school of architecture
- [00:10:31.032]in a state that never had an architecture school before.
- [00:10:33.912]So he was literally in the first year
- [00:10:35.690]I believe the faculty member, director,
- [00:10:39.200]the staff person,
- [00:10:41.912]I don't know, you probably were the janitor as well.
- [00:10:44.754]Maybe the student in the first semester.
- [00:10:46.170]And then gradually sort of built a program
- [00:10:48.510]that's now an accredited school of architecture
- [00:10:52.632]now to the north.
- [00:10:55.272]And I think, you know,
- [00:10:56.675]one of the things that I hope
- [00:10:57.508]Brian brings to the conversation
- [00:10:59.512]is sort of an expertise in building pedagogy,
- [00:11:02.893]and so designing pedagogy,
- [00:11:04.973]but also working in,
- [00:11:07.373]I guess a community design practice.
- [00:11:09.251]He did some projects in Nebraska
- [00:11:10.914]with Nebraska nature program,
- [00:11:13.794]and he's done projects in South Dakota
- [00:11:15.192]and other places with regional communities.
- [00:11:18.872]And then Chris Turner,
- [00:11:20.072]here in the center,
- [00:11:21.010]in the middle of the sandwich,
- [00:11:23.016]is the practicing architect in the group.
- [00:11:26.810]He's a project architect at
- [00:11:28.834]RDG Planning and Design in Omaha,
- [00:11:31.650]where he leads civic and commercial projects
- [00:11:35.100]for the office.
- [00:11:35.933]He's worked in a number of other
- [00:11:37.976]offices here locally as well as in Los Angeles.
- [00:11:40.720]He received an undergraduate degree
- [00:11:42.060]in architecture from the University of Nebraska,
- [00:11:44.350]and then a master of architecture from SCI-Arc,
- [00:11:48.100]the Southern Californian Institute of Architecture
- [00:11:50.050]in Los Angeles,
- [00:11:53.410]and Chris has also served as
- [00:11:54.780]adjunct faculty member at UNL,
- [00:11:58.560]teaching undergraduate and graduate level
- [00:12:00.880]studio courses for us at UNL.
- [00:12:05.442]So I think he's a unique sort of person to talk
- [00:12:06.900]about the bridging aspect of this conversation.
- [00:12:12.941]And finally, Sarah Deyoung to my left,
- [00:12:16.470]is the incoming director of the architecture
- [00:12:20.240]program at the University of Nebraska.
- [00:12:23.050]She starts in a couple weeks officially,
- [00:12:26.717]so this is sort of a precursor to
- [00:12:27.710]actually officially starting.
- [00:12:30.860]Sarah teaches design studios and history and theory,
- [00:12:36.397]criticism courses up until now at Texas A&M University,
- [00:12:40.590]and is of course moving here
- [00:12:42.860]to start at the UNL program.
- [00:12:47.858]She, let's see, flip to the page here.
- [00:12:52.621]She has a bachelor of architecture from
- [00:12:55.057]the University of Toronto,
- [00:12:56.578]an MA in Art History from the University of Toronto,
- [00:12:59.298]and then an MA and a PhD in architecture history theory
- [00:13:02.397]and criticism from Princeton University in New Jersey.
- [00:13:05.740]Her research centers on the post-World War II
- [00:13:08.590]period to the present,
- [00:13:11.917]and underscores the symbiotic relationship
- [00:13:13.610]between history, theory and criticism
- [00:13:15.880]and design practice,
- [00:13:18.077]so clearly right in the center of this conversation.
- [00:13:21.330]She has grants from the grant foundation,
- [00:13:24.330]the Glass Rock Center for the Humanities
- [00:13:26.180]at Texas A&M,
- [00:13:28.157]and has published her research in a lot of different venues,
- [00:13:29.490]including the Journal of Architectural Education,
- [00:13:32.815]Journal of the Society Architectural Historians,
- [00:13:35.930]and others, and she's also on the editorial boards
- [00:13:39.230]of JAE and JSAH.
- [00:13:42.830]So welcome to all of you,
- [00:13:46.255]and thanks to the audience for
- [00:13:48.735]sort of preparing for the weather,
- [00:13:50.538]and coming out for this.
- [00:13:51.519]So we're going to start with brief presentations
- [00:13:53.940]by each of these folks.
- [00:13:55.632]Let's start with Chris,
- [00:13:56.655]'cause he's using the high-tech screen.
- [00:13:58.700]I call them two slides,
- [00:14:00.931]but it looks like 12, 13.
- [00:14:03.030]You may be cheating right now.
- [00:14:04.691]We had no limit.
- [00:14:09.500]Thanks for inviting me to be here by the way,
- [00:14:12.210]I was interested in the dialogue and the conversation,
- [00:14:15.090]and somewhat, you know,
- [00:14:17.272]based on what Jeff has said,
- [00:14:19.971]which is the overlap between practice and teaching,
- [00:14:23.040]and what I've experienced over the last 10 years,
- [00:14:27.299]and that both from being in Los Angeles,
- [00:14:28.880]and being involved in some of the schools there,
- [00:14:34.957]but also being here obviously.
- [00:14:38.557]And I just wanted to point out
- [00:14:40.550]a couple things real quick about
- [00:14:42.640]my position about this.
- [00:14:44.713]Jeff talked, or Jeff mentioned briefly that, you know,
- [00:14:50.130]university education in architecture isn't,
- [00:14:54.056]it's not a training ground for them,
- [00:14:56.360]it's not a training ground for technical skills,
- [00:14:57.620]it should be a place for thinking,
- [00:15:00.090]for understanding a range of issues.
- [00:15:03.255]And I think this audience is a group of people
- [00:15:05.410]that we're probably it seems like likely on the same page
- [00:15:09.370]when it comes to some of that.
- [00:15:12.040]But I just wanted to quickly, for me,
- [00:15:15.490]position it in a way that looks
- [00:15:17.150]at a range of social issues,
- [00:15:20.878]and so academia for me has been
- [00:15:22.450]the counterpart to practice,
- [00:15:24.516]wherein practice has been, for me, more technical,
- [00:15:27.730]and somewhat dry in a way.
- [00:15:30.060]And the university has been a place
- [00:15:31.680]where research has enabled the ability
- [00:15:34.790]to explore ideas, concepts,
- [00:15:36.530]test different things.
- [00:15:38.857]I think, you know,
- [00:15:39.895]that's kind of common amongst the practiced.
- [00:15:43.929]You'll hear that from a number of people
- [00:15:45.417]who both practice and teach.
- [00:15:46.880]So for me, it's you know,
- [00:15:49.476]just quickly about different social issues
- [00:15:51.330]that we could possibly address through the university.
- [00:15:58.540]Manufacturing, housing, homelessness,
- [00:16:02.780]the university has a way to explore
- [00:16:04.560]those different types of social structures,
- [00:16:08.020]and how we might solve them.
- [00:16:09.270]I think I still somewhat believe,
- [00:16:11.320]and it might be from past training,
- [00:16:14.394]I still somewhat believe that we have
- [00:16:15.961]the ability to assert ourselves into those situations,
- [00:16:19.390]I don't know that we can solve them.
- [00:16:21.330]But we have the opportunity to at least somewhat help,
- [00:16:25.100]or propose solutions.
- [00:16:30.510]The opposite side of that being,
- [00:16:33.102]you have the complexity of the profession,
- [00:16:34.917]and what it takes to go from concepts,
- [00:16:38.670]and research and study,
- [00:16:40.170]to actual practice.
- [00:16:42.062]And this is probably just a small sample right?
- [00:16:43.960]It's like daily, weekly,
- [00:16:45.930]and the time frame for this to happen
- [00:16:49.038]is over the course of a year
- [00:16:50.820]or bigger projects,
- [00:16:52.540]multiple years,
- [00:16:54.622]and we don't necessarily experience that
- [00:16:57.080]in the academic practice,
- [00:16:59.674]and in community projects that are engaged in practice.
- [00:17:04.950]For me it was just a quick reminder
- [00:17:06.860]of all the things that we have to kind of
- [00:17:09.430]have oversight on,
- [00:17:11.641]and the one that I come back to
- [00:17:13.080]is the damn post-indicator valve.
- [00:17:19.662]Which for me is kind of an icon of practice.
- [00:17:21.340]You have to pay attention to every detail
- [00:17:24.330]of all the crap that you think doesn't matter,
- [00:17:26.610]but it's stuff like that
- [00:17:27.760]that lands in the most inconvenient locations
- [00:17:30.921]that can potentially screw up your project.
- [00:17:35.278]So that's for me one of those details in practice.
- [00:17:38.840]It's like we have to be able to balance
- [00:17:40.830]the concept of design,
- [00:17:43.950]but we also have to take the approach
- [00:17:45.590]that we have to know where that kind of crap lands.
- [00:17:47.880]And so there's a very technical side,
- [00:17:51.720]technical training that does have to happen.
- [00:17:56.410]Thanks.
- [00:17:58.761](audience chattering)
- [00:18:00.850]Do you want me to just close this, or leave it up?
- [00:18:03.998]Yeah,
- [00:18:04.831]well why don't you close it down so that (mumbles).
- [00:18:11.977](muttering)
- [00:18:21.417]Go ahead Brian. Go ahead.
- [00:18:23.097]Just grab a pen.
- [00:18:29.097]There's 168 credit hours required
- [00:18:31.140]to get somebody through to a bachelor of architecture.
- [00:18:37.481]Yet some of those credit hours aren't needed,
- [00:18:39.380]we should give them back to the students.
- [00:18:43.220]What I have to deliver,
- [00:18:44.210]I'm a professional professor.
- [00:18:46.463]I'm a professional,
- [00:18:48.383]and I'm not an architect.
- [00:18:51.950]I respect you all and what you all do,
- [00:18:56.539]and I think I have a para life going,
- [00:18:59.620]I'm a designer,
- [00:19:01.385]but I design creepy little pedagogies.
- [00:19:05.830]I have a responsibility to the students
- [00:19:08.601]to produce best possible, most intensive, most concentrated,
- [00:19:15.640]most successful education I can build for them.
- [00:19:21.145]As you know, as designers,
- [00:19:22.425]usually to get to that,
- [00:19:24.170]we need to make sure we take care of all
- [00:19:26.380]and close up all the unnecessary variables
- [00:19:29.442]we assess the situation.
- [00:19:34.345]This is just the preface that I
- [00:19:36.847]that I was thinking about for this.
- [00:19:40.964]So we've been getting six years a trade.
- [00:19:44.925]What makes me nervous about all the applied studios,
- [00:19:47.660]what I'd like to get here is
- [00:19:51.560]pick on Jeff and Chris a little
- [00:19:52.770]just for a second.
- [00:19:55.545]Where'd it go?
- [00:19:56.484]Oh there they are.
- [00:20:00.361]I think you mentioned the grand issues of the discipline,
- [00:20:02.303]or what, somebody did.
- [00:20:03.970]You did.
- [00:20:05.725]Versus job training.
- [00:20:07.567]And I think there's the other end of it
- [00:20:08.985]which is instead of saying we trained the humanities,
- [00:20:14.123]we trained to the profession,
- [00:20:15.323]we train, and then we have fun,
- [00:20:17.883]and we have three separate buckets.
- [00:20:19.664]Somehow we've got to bring these back together
- [00:20:21.342]and combine them together.
- [00:20:23.950]I'd rather just keep the students to myself
- [00:20:25.610]and train them myself,
- [00:20:27.483]and train them to good people
- [00:20:28.316]that I hired full-time
- [00:20:29.230]that I know are totally under my control.
- [00:20:38.160]We're in concert, we're in like mind,
- [00:20:39.850]we're working together as a team,
- [00:20:41.851]just like you all are on your projects,
- [00:20:45.189]and we can make sure that
- [00:20:46.022]those successes happen,
- [00:20:48.505]or we're responsible for directing,
- [00:20:49.338]we don't have to...
- [00:20:52.667]There's a certain danger to compromise,
- [00:20:56.030]in sending the students out to do work on this.
- [00:20:58.485]I love this stuff.
- [00:21:00.708]But how do I know they all
- [00:21:01.850]they all got it in their heart?
- [00:21:05.840]I was raised a conservative baptist fundamentalist,
- [00:21:08.580]so I think I have a certain fundamentalism
- [00:21:11.451]to this stuff to me,
- [00:21:13.007]I realize I keep it in check,
- [00:21:14.090]and I like to go out and do work
- [00:21:16.489]for communities and this kind of thing,
- [00:21:17.712]but I run the (mumbles).
- [00:21:19.460]There are core things that
- [00:21:21.728]if we don't have six year's worth of education
- [00:21:23.589]in those core things to offer the students,
- [00:21:26.010]we probably should give some time back,
- [00:21:26.870]so put it back.
- [00:21:29.349]We could shorten it back again,
- [00:21:30.253]with an E-arc scale or even less,
- [00:21:32.848]but we know that within the university,
- [00:21:34.760]one of the next things coming is
- [00:21:36.768]we're gonna see things start to get cut
- [00:21:38.150]in terms of the number of credit hours
- [00:21:39.830]required for a bachelors degree.
- [00:21:42.925]We'll go more like Canada,
- [00:21:44.123]where it's three years,
- [00:21:45.429]unless you want to go on further
- [00:21:46.666]just be the honors
- [00:21:48.330]you know, the whole system.
- [00:21:50.594]I'm rambling, let me go back to this.
- [00:21:55.760]I grew up mostly in Texas,
- [00:21:57.950]and Oklahoma is the inverse of Texas.
- [00:22:01.650]Maybe like one over Texas is Oklahoma,
- [00:22:04.450]and one over Nebraska is South Dakota.
- [00:22:07.350]We couldn't be more different
- [00:22:09.530]in our situations between the two schools,
- [00:22:12.210]in almost every way.
- [00:22:17.388]It's a rival city.
- [00:22:18.610]So when we were started,
- [00:22:19.560]let me just,
- [00:22:21.099]this is the programmatic charge we were given.
- [00:22:23.370]We were charged with raising
- [00:22:25.130]architectural and design culture in South Dakota.
- [00:22:27.360]I played a game Jeff Cockal won there is,
- [00:22:29.830]name an architect whose got a
- [00:22:32.500]building in South Dakota,
- [00:22:34.930]a name brand architect,
- [00:22:38.488]and Jeff figured out there was a design
- [00:22:39.420]by Michael Conde at one point.
- [00:22:42.110]It was Evans (mumbles), South Dakota.
- [00:22:44.130]It didn't get built.
- [00:22:46.607]But Michael Conde got a license in South Dakota.
- [00:22:48.930]So that's the biggest name
- [00:22:51.811](coughing drowns out Brian)
- [00:22:52.858]Frank Lloyd Wright,
- [00:22:53.691]no Charles Moore,
- [00:22:55.310]no you know,
- [00:22:57.552]no thank God, Calatrava, you know,
- [00:23:00.795]or any of this kind of stuff.
- [00:23:03.076]I hate Calatrava, but that's a different story.
- [00:23:09.894]In South Dakota, the worst word you can,
- [00:23:13.062]it's a little bit like Nebraska,
- [00:23:14.113]but you can't even imagine
- [00:23:15.356]unless you're from,
- [00:23:16.278]you've seen this,
- [00:23:17.111]the most brutal epithet you
- [00:23:19.120]can throw in South Dakota is the word fancy.
- [00:23:21.950]If it's fancy,
- [00:23:24.490]you might as just tell them (footsteps drown Brian)
- [00:23:28.576]I don't know,
- [00:23:29.574]it's terrible that can be used for fancy.
- [00:23:31.275]So we were charged with raising the architectural culture,
- [00:23:33.080]architecture and design culture of South Dakota.
- [00:23:34.860]The university leadership is introducing
- [00:23:36.670]architecture to the institution changes culture,
- [00:23:40.175]so one of the reasons the
- [00:23:41.476]president of the university pushed
- [00:23:42.618]the idea of having an architecture program there
- [00:23:43.451]is he came from Illinois,
- [00:23:45.498]where is it, Carbondale?
- [00:23:49.040]The big university of Illinois.
- [00:23:51.814](audience talking)
- [00:23:52.647]Champagne, thank you.
- [00:23:54.954]He had taught there, he saw what,
- [00:23:56.693]and he said there was something missing.
- [00:23:58.357]When I showed up at SCSU,
- [00:23:59.733]I cannot find a public scanner on campus.
- [00:24:03.572]It was that unvisual.
- [00:24:05.191]You cannot imagine how unvisual
- [00:24:06.496]a campus can be without architecture.
- [00:24:08.553]And it's weird because I've walking out seeing like,
- [00:24:09.386]you guys have a scanner?
- [00:24:10.219]And they're like, oh my god, we need a scanner?
- [00:24:12.550]What are you gonna use it for?
- [00:24:14.448]And I was like, I wanna copy an image out.
- [00:24:15.281]And they're like, well can't you just copy the words out?
- [00:24:16.550]Like, no, I need pictures...
- [00:24:19.723](laughing)
- [00:24:21.285]Crazy man.
- [00:24:22.610]So we changed the culture.
- [00:24:24.785]And now we're here and I actually
- [00:24:26.610]kind of now believe a little bit of this,
- [00:24:29.137]that we're part, we were until just last month,
- [00:24:32.267]we were part of a college of arts and sciences,
- [00:24:34.043]we're one of 17 departments,
- [00:24:37.684]and the thing probably I'm most proud of
- [00:24:41.430]in the work I've done at that university
- [00:24:43.888]is I've convinced every one of those real professors
- [00:24:46.950]in these departments like geography,
- [00:24:50.230]chemistry, and all these others
- [00:24:51.840]like real professor people,
- [00:24:54.460]that they think that we really are humanity.
- [00:24:57.341]And we really do explore those kinds of things.
- [00:25:00.520]I don't know if that's a battle you will have to have here.
- [00:25:04.450]I don't know how it sits.
- [00:25:05.440]It's different.
- [00:25:08.180]The governor directly called me up,
- [00:25:11.439]gave us a mandate to improve the
- [00:25:13.149]culture construction mistake.
- [00:25:15.473]It was a weird call,
- [00:25:16.352]I thought I was getting fired, like by the ultimate.
- [00:25:18.050]They're like, "The governor's on the phone."
- [00:25:19.788]I'm like, "I'm gone, man.
- [00:25:20.627]"I'm just tappin' out."
- [00:25:21.460]This is good, we're four fired.
- [00:25:24.540]The regional profession is grained
- [00:25:26.587]with diminishing influence,
- [00:25:27.723]so they invested heavily in a program
- [00:25:28.556]to recharge their cohort.
- [00:25:30.865]The biggest firm in South Dakota
- [00:25:32.143]has 10 architects in the office.
- [00:25:34.544]There are four firms in South Dakota,
- [00:25:35.377]one of them being only two architects in the office,
- [00:25:38.120]that each put up $24,000 for 10 years each,
- [00:25:42.640]as a commitment to start the program,
- [00:25:45.209]which is a huge commitment.
- [00:25:46.947]And they're basically not hiring any our students,
- [00:25:49.020]after all of it.
- [00:25:50.653]It's been a really interesting situation.
- [00:25:52.791]There's a couple people out there,
- [00:25:54.029]but the four founding firms,
- [00:25:55.620]it's not what they wanted.
- [00:25:57.520]There's nobody in South Dakota
- [00:26:00.749]who's 40 years old at Survitec.
- [00:26:02.390]You want an improvement for job prospects,
- [00:26:04.150]it's pretty good.
- [00:26:06.350]So we maxed out also at 220 students across six years,
- [00:26:10.576]we only graduated 16 professional degrees a year,
- [00:26:13.260]and I'm sorry,
- [00:26:14.901]I know I'm going through this pretty quick,
- [00:26:15.975]first new school between Moscow and Milwaukee, this century,
- [00:26:17.980]Brookings is only 22,000 people.
- [00:26:20.743]We started it in 2010 with three to six in Brookings,
- [00:26:22.360]and now we have 12.
- [00:26:25.200]The large foot yards,
- [00:26:26.220]the large petrellis,
- [00:26:27.746]and the other thing about it, we have that you all have
- [00:26:28.961]that we're in right now is
- [00:26:29.840]we have no metropolitan condition in this thing.
- [00:26:32.763]It's just, you can't call Sioux Falls a metropolitan,
- [00:26:36.530]Geographers and demographers will call it that,
- [00:26:38.240]but it's a big town, it's not a small city.
- [00:26:42.000]It's got a Main Street.
- [00:26:44.320]There's no grid.
- [00:26:46.010]So when we started the program,
- [00:26:48.761]don't worry, I'll come do it again,
- [00:26:51.110]Our first mantra was, and it's on our website,
- [00:26:55.570]We're a small professional program,
- [00:26:56.820]set in a small town preparing students
- [00:26:58.410]for small practices in small places.
- [00:27:02.992]What's not true about that?
- [00:27:04.599](coughing)
- [00:27:05.671]The local professionals had a cow.
- [00:27:08.750]They were so pissed at us,
- [00:27:11.479]that we would say such a thing.
- [00:27:12.312]Because small is bad, right?
- [00:27:15.573]No it's not.
- [00:27:17.530]Okay, sure.
- [00:27:19.400]So our state's professionals
- [00:27:20.861]are outraged by it,
- [00:27:22.821]I believe one of the things
- [00:27:23.870]that we're here to do,
- [00:27:24.703]that maybe I always felt was,
- [00:27:28.542]with the scale of firms in Omaha,
- [00:27:30.973]I think it's hard for UNL to provoke the profession here,
- [00:27:34.949]in the way that,
- [00:27:35.859]if you're a school with seven faculty,
- [00:27:37.340]and the biggest firm has 10 architects,
- [00:27:38.980]you can kind of meet up in a rumble,
- [00:27:42.050]but still you wouldn't be facing the
- [00:27:42.883]hoards of 14 of us fighting it out.
- [00:27:49.210]We lived on that,
- [00:27:50.170]they did ask us to take it down,
- [00:27:51.270]we told them we lost the password to the website.
- [00:27:53.750](audience laughing)
- [00:27:57.855]We left it there for four years.
- [00:28:00.570]So a local program makes a
- [00:28:02.450]professional community much more reflective.
- [00:28:03.847]This is a thing I never knew,
- [00:28:04.928]I never lived away from an architecture program
- [00:28:06.759]before in my life,
- [00:28:07.890]there you see what it is like
- [00:28:09.229]to not have one nearby,
- [00:28:10.429]and the impact that it has.
- [00:28:11.580]I think sometimes we can get into the weeds,
- [00:28:13.310]when we don't think about these things,
- [00:28:14.580]but just the fact that the program's over there
- [00:28:16.950]in Lincoln today, you would know,
- [00:28:18.480]you have no idea the impact's it's having.
- [00:28:21.908]And even though I think a lot
- [00:28:22.741]of the firms in Omaha may proceed the school,
- [00:28:26.308]it's still just an amazing thing.
- [00:28:27.972]So we flipped to another mantra now.
- [00:28:36.708]Yeah, we're in South Dakota, it's good.
- [00:28:40.649]We train people who make things,
- [00:28:41.806]to make good buildings,
- [00:28:42.708]to make good cities.
- [00:28:44.425]We found that talking about
- [00:28:45.588]how to make a building
- [00:28:47.280]at basic levels,
- [00:28:49.748]like our first history class,
- [00:28:50.888]and history construction class,
- [00:28:51.988]we have a course,
- [00:28:52.868]set of shop courses that are not studios.
- [00:28:54.905]They are explicitly not studios,
- [00:28:56.067]they're two credit hours,
- [00:28:57.465]very small, compressed, explorations of making.
- [00:29:01.040]We have a very big shop, we have all this stuff,
- [00:29:03.240]but talking directly about making buildings
- [00:29:06.820]is really different than a lot
- [00:29:08.980]of the schools I've been involved in.
- [00:29:11.920]There's a lot going on
- [00:29:13.696]other than just, you know,
- [00:29:16.896]I never thought I'd be the guy
- [00:29:17.729]that would say this kind of stuff, but...
- [00:29:24.450]Why is it so different between the two worlds?
- [00:29:28.220]Is there no way to pragmatize
- [00:29:30.452]what is happening in the practices
- [00:29:32.015]to the point where it becomes
- [00:29:32.982]interesting like school is?
- [00:29:34.470]Because between Omaha and Lincoln,
- [00:29:37.941]it seems like there's a strong escape valve
- [00:29:40.180]across the two places.
- [00:29:42.240]Because this is a place to go play,
- [00:29:43.778]and this is a place to get stuff done.
- [00:29:45.722]So I'm not giving that one (mumbles).
- [00:29:50.790]I feel like what we know, is we've had five, as of January,
- [00:29:54.420]we'll have had five accreditation
- [00:29:55.950]visits in nine years.
- [00:29:58.130]We've had to really tune ourselves
- [00:29:59.530]to the accreditation process.
- [00:30:01.350]So we've had to become a very
- [00:30:02.690]meat and potatoes program.
- [00:30:04.351]And we really over-demonstrate things.
- [00:30:06.080]Having firms begin to take notice of us,
- [00:30:08.250]and some find places to hire our graduates, somewhere.
- [00:30:12.060]Those paths aren't broken for us,
- [00:30:13.250]we don't know about these things.
- [00:30:15.860]He thought I was Mars,
- [00:30:18.540]in January probably about,
- [00:30:22.210]you know I had to explain to him
- [00:30:23.360]he's even from Redfield,
- [00:30:24.650]and he had to go like there's Omaha,
- [00:30:25.980]it's on this place called Nebraska,
- [00:30:27.310]down south of here.
- [00:30:28.740]But do they have baseball there?
- [00:30:30.195]I was like, yes!
- [00:30:31.028]And they have baseball.
- [00:30:32.320]With some (mumbles).
- [00:30:34.200]What's that?
- [00:30:36.970]We'll go there.
- [00:30:38.150]But I think, I feel like we're the,
- [00:30:40.750]when you talk about the intersection
- [00:30:41.840]and then we're the, we are the problem.
- [00:30:47.380]We're the provocation in the situation.
- [00:30:49.908]We don't have a profession asking us
- [00:30:53.799]did we train them better?
- [00:30:54.632]Because they're not really onto it yet.
- [00:30:57.830]They have a very slow profession.
- [00:31:00.920]They're still using them as CAD.
- [00:31:04.729]Like Canada man,
- [00:31:05.942]they can just jump right over top of you guys.
- [00:31:07.150]Next thing you know, they're out in front of you.
- [00:31:10.264]Canada skipped the whole modern movement,
- [00:31:11.799]just like right to post-modern.
- [00:31:13.447](audience laughing)
- [00:31:17.078]I guess I shouldn't speak for Canada here.
- [00:31:20.520]I'll stop, I'm done, I'm sorry.
- [00:31:22.440]I'm starting to like ramble.
- [00:31:27.710]Well, yes.
- [00:31:29.600]I'd like to just start off by saying
- [00:31:32.326]that it's really an honor to be here.
- [00:31:34.483]I want to thank you Jeff, for organizing this.
- [00:31:37.342]And actually I love the fact
- [00:31:39.603]that this is an opportunity for me,
- [00:31:40.960]and such a small and intimate setting
- [00:31:43.220]to actually speak with you,
- [00:31:45.440]and I hope to continue meeting more people
- [00:31:48.540]after our discussion
- [00:31:51.220]if the opportunity is there.
- [00:31:54.320]Brian, you've got a tough sell there.
- [00:31:58.846]It's amazing that you're working in a context,
- [00:32:03.320]you're faced with a lot of challenges,
- [00:32:06.263]and it's almost like, you know,
- [00:32:09.043]trying to design a building in nowhere,
- [00:32:12.450]and you don't have a context
- [00:32:14.400]or a cultural context that you can,
- [00:32:17.310]in some ways, it's even more of a challenge.
- [00:32:21.091]But then on the other hand,
- [00:32:21.924]you have the opportunity to be completely radical,
- [00:32:26.611]and nobody will know the better.
- [00:32:28.973]You know so you can do some
- [00:32:30.700]pretty experimental stuff.
- [00:32:32.828]I think we really are (mumbles).
- [00:32:34.350]Pardon?
- [00:32:35.487]I think we're really (mumbles).
- [00:32:41.640]Well, my own perspective,
- [00:32:44.430]I come from a different context,
- [00:32:47.807]and my background is, as Jeff mentioned,
- [00:32:51.100]I did my PhD in history, theory and criticism,
- [00:32:54.760]and so you know, on the one hand,
- [00:33:00.332]I'm specializing in such an expertise
- [00:33:06.123]that almost at a certain point
- [00:33:09.940]kind of separated itself from design.
- [00:33:12.750]When I did my PhD,
- [00:33:13.920]I was no longer doing design studio.
- [00:33:17.090]That experience was good, it had pros,
- [00:33:21.340]and it also had cons.
- [00:33:22.610]The pros for me was that
- [00:33:24.890]by studying history and theory,
- [00:33:28.361]I've got the long view of what our discipline is.
- [00:33:34.300]And I have to bring that
- [00:33:38.830]perspective into play at UNL.
- [00:33:43.069]I think I'm very much an advocate
- [00:33:46.018]of collaboration and respecting
- [00:33:48.880]different points of view.
- [00:33:50.496]And to recognize that we all have
- [00:33:51.500]a different point of view.
- [00:33:53.950]But I think that the most important one
- [00:33:55.960]is actually, in terms of what our expertise
- [00:33:59.380]is as a discipline, it is design.
- [00:34:02.020]So for me, history and theory can give
- [00:34:03.930]the long view of what that is.
- [00:34:06.790]The cons of what I experienced is that
- [00:34:09.270]in doing history and theory,
- [00:34:10.900]I almost felt like suddenly,
- [00:34:13.920]that expertise, and it did happen,
- [00:34:17.681]when I was going through the PhD program,
- [00:34:19.620]where it was suddenly kind of like
- [00:34:21.170]almost removed from what
- [00:34:23.720]the students needed to know
- [00:34:25.530]about the history of their discipline,
- [00:34:29.020]to four design studio.
- [00:34:33.150]And by that I mean that
- [00:34:35.040]at Princeton I did a lot of cultural theories.
- [00:34:40.554]So I did a lot of post-structuralism,
- [00:34:42.710]philosophy, and I went so far that
- [00:34:46.694]I almost felt like I moved away
- [00:34:50.910]too far from our discipline.
- [00:34:53.950]You know, I don't regret it.
- [00:34:56.516]I learned a lot from,
- [00:34:58.296]I did Lacanian psychoanalysis,
- [00:35:01.184]and there are figures like Tony Fiedler,
- [00:35:05.017]whose work and his writing and history
- [00:35:08.252]were very much informed by Lacanian psychoanalysis
- [00:35:14.490]as it had informed also cultural studies.
- [00:35:22.540]And here this is I'm really
- [00:35:23.373]talking about you know the 90's
- [00:35:25.250]that that had happened.
- [00:35:27.196]So I know that I have a younger generation here,
- [00:35:28.560]Adam, you're going what?
- [00:35:31.428]But that was very much my background at Princeton.
- [00:35:34.870]And so I'm glad to see
- [00:35:37.210]that things have basically for me,
- [00:35:40.050]my perspective is that history and theory
- [00:35:42.970]has to really speak, has to crossover and tell us,
- [00:35:47.980]tell students, inform students about what our discipline is.
- [00:35:53.710]I am so interested in the topic
- [00:35:56.050]that Jeff has proposed for us,
- [00:36:00.893]and you know,
- [00:36:03.189]and I was reading just very recently,
- [00:36:05.650]there was an article in Architectural Record,
- [00:36:09.821]I don't know if you read it,
- [00:36:11.057]but it was about small firms.
- [00:36:13.010]And I thought it was a really interesting article,
- [00:36:16.210]because a lot of what they
- [00:36:17.970]were saying about those small firms for me,
- [00:36:20.860]are things that in our discipline
- [00:36:23.230]we teach our students.
- [00:36:26.450]So those things were for example,
- [00:36:27.810]that the firms,
- [00:36:29.690]the small firms that survive,
- [00:36:31.530]and by the way,
- [00:36:33.000]I should give you some context here.
- [00:36:37.040]Their statistic was that 77% of firms are small.
- [00:36:42.490]That is less than nine employees,
- [00:36:44.880]have failed and fail in five years,
- [00:36:48.078]and 70% in 10 years.
- [00:36:52.350]So they interviewed eight or nine firms,
- [00:36:55.000]the ones that did not fail, obviously,
- [00:36:58.353]that were going past 10 years.
- [00:37:01.357]And what they had in common,
- [00:37:03.049]they identified these elements
- [00:37:05.021]that made them basically survive.
- [00:37:07.120]And those elements were things like
- [00:37:09.080]they were nimble and flexible.
- [00:37:11.250]They were diversified,
- [00:37:13.365]whereas big firms tend to specialize
- [00:37:14.840]in a certain type,
- [00:37:17.129]like stadiums, hospitals,
- [00:37:19.090]these firms, they basically were able to take on
- [00:37:23.940]different kinds of projects during economic downturns.
- [00:37:29.356]So they're showing a flexibility there.
- [00:37:34.813]And for me, behind that, why are they able to be flexible?
- [00:37:38.691]Because they have an expertise that is transferrable.
- [00:37:43.781]And I'm gonna talk a little more about what that is.
- [00:37:47.000]They also talked about how some of these firms,
- [00:37:50.140]they engage with community organizations.
- [00:37:53.980]So that close connection to communities
- [00:37:57.626]I think is something that, in the academy,
- [00:37:59.940]we support and that we try to nurture,
- [00:38:06.350]especially a tier one research university like UNL.
- [00:38:12.200]They basically are very inclusive.
- [00:38:17.330]They talked about being diverse,
- [00:38:20.130]racially and in terms of gender.
- [00:38:22.330]Gender diversity.
- [00:38:25.148]And then they're able to work within constraints.
- [00:38:27.720]And that is so important to me.
- [00:38:30.164]And those constraints are basically,
- [00:38:31.946]you know, tight budgets, right?
- [00:38:36.110]Zoning bylaws, of course,
- [00:38:37.640]building code, you know,
- [00:38:39.930]the whims of the client.
- [00:38:42.035]All that detail overload that
- [00:38:43.250]you were speaking about, Chris.
- [00:38:45.820]And then the key one for me was
- [00:38:48.830]this deep commitment to good design,
- [00:38:51.430]and its power to transform lives.
- [00:38:54.820]And you know for me,
- [00:38:57.731]and I've had many discussions actually
- [00:38:58.970]when I interviewed at UNL,
- [00:39:01.735]about what I appreciated about that school,
- [00:39:04.526]was that there are other schools
- [00:39:06.590]that may have forgotten what
- [00:39:08.070]their identity was,
- [00:39:09.940]what their expertise was,
- [00:39:12.370]but I think that UNL, from what I could see,
- [00:39:16.590]especially with the recent
- [00:39:18.470]NAEB accreditation that Jeff led,
- [00:39:22.968]they were very clear that the center
- [00:39:25.780]of their discipline was design.
- [00:39:28.870]And I'm very much an advocate of that.
- [00:39:32.730]Now before I talk more about that,
- [00:39:34.460]I just want to say that you know, for me,
- [00:39:38.180]and this is being the historian,
- [00:39:40.460]that there are these small firms
- [00:39:43.049]that are actually able to scale up.
- [00:39:45.879]So it's a very, it's a small number,
- [00:39:47.710]but they're able to scale from
- [00:39:51.838]doing design at a, maybe they're doing theater.
- [00:39:57.090]Not even theater as in designing the theater, the building.
- [00:40:00.360]Actually just designing the stage set,
- [00:40:03.070]and then scale up to something like
- [00:40:06.540]the Boston Contemporary Arts,
- [00:40:11.341]that's a Diller and Scafittio
- [00:40:13.404]and I was really lucky to be around them
- [00:40:15.450]because they, Diller is, Elizabeth Diller
- [00:40:19.760]is faculty at Princeton.
- [00:40:22.340]And those guys were really quite amazing
- [00:40:25.725]and other firms are like, that I can name
- [00:40:29.370]that I've studied are of course OMA, Sina
- [00:40:34.520]and I also really appreciate firms like Renzo Piano,
- [00:40:39.400]the building workshop.
- [00:40:41.800]Again, able to scale up.
- [00:40:44.725]The firms that kind of don't scale up,
- [00:40:48.730]they usually don't get a second chance, why?
- [00:40:51.773]Because we're talking about huge budgets here for buildings.
- [00:40:55.370]I know a lot of my friends, for example,
- [00:40:59.282]they had an opportunity to scale up
- [00:41:00.990]but they were unable to do it
- [00:41:03.477]and you don't get a second chance really.
- [00:41:09.176]So these are firms now, that they're not corporate firms,
- [00:41:14.750]and they're admired by the academy.
- [00:41:18.090]And so for me, that's a clear sign
- [00:41:21.680]that there is some continuity between these smaller firms
- [00:41:25.960]and what makes the points that I had listed
- [00:41:31.030]that made them work, right.
- [00:41:33.745]And then the continuity with these larger firms
- [00:41:36.160]that are able to actually deal with these different
- [00:41:41.200]let's say constraints, but then at a much higher level.
- [00:41:45.200]I mean that requires a lot of brain cells I think.
- [00:41:49.898]To be able to do that is incredible.
- [00:41:53.885]And in fact, that's I think,
- [00:41:56.090]when an architecture school, throughout long history,
- [00:42:03.233]we're in that business
- [00:42:05.113]and I find that today,
- [00:42:11.830]people appreciate that expertise
- [00:42:16.001]and I think that we need to be very articulate
- [00:42:17.830]about what that expertise is.
- [00:42:20.734]Rather than kind of vague and loosey goosey about it.
- [00:42:24.174]And again, I think that the long perspective
- [00:42:26.030]of history can actually help us be very rigorous
- [00:42:29.970]about what design is.
- [00:42:34.449]So for me, I was on a good thread here
- [00:42:48.474]and I'm sorry, but I just go a little bit thrown off here.
- [00:42:53.677]But I'd like to say,
- [00:42:55.020]maybe end my 10 minutes with
- [00:42:59.270]some comments about design then.
- [00:43:03.980]So those comments are, and from that longer perspective.
- [00:43:07.230]Those comments are I think,
- [00:43:11.710]we have a tendency right now and that's what I heard
- [00:43:15.050]in the introduction, to then kind of like polarize
- [00:43:20.290]on two extreme ends.
- [00:43:22.370]One end is basically that okay, conceptual, right?
- [00:43:26.250]Where you learn in the academy and school.
- [00:43:29.360]You've gotta be creative and conceptual
- [00:43:32.350]but then we go in to practice and then
- [00:43:36.870]we don't get to use that anymore,
- [00:43:39.271]it costs too much money to be conceptual, right?
- [00:43:45.099]And then what happens is that then
- [00:43:46.440]in practice, right, what I'm hearing
- [00:43:49.350]and I also went into practice.
- [00:43:52.540]That then, when you put that to the side,
- [00:43:55.460]design thinking, right.
- [00:43:57.330]And then it's all about how can I minimize costs?
- [00:44:00.720]How can I do everything to a pattern?
- [00:44:02.470]How can I do everything to a typology?
- [00:44:05.190]Because everything is in a cookie cutter kind of mold.
- [00:44:08.750]Right, because designing buildings,
- [00:44:11.981]it's too difficult, you're gonna lose money.
- [00:44:15.930]I think that opposition in a way,
- [00:44:17.930]is something that we have to dismantle.
- [00:44:21.654]And I think that it's really important.
- [00:44:23.550]I think all really good architects,
- [00:44:26.020]they know how to design within constraints.
- [00:44:30.370]I think that there is a danger
- [00:44:32.680]to actually do design that is not actually,
- [00:44:36.380]where students are not confronted with constraints.
- [00:44:40.700]I think the constraints, you can kind of bring
- [00:44:43.340]more and more of them in year by year, right?
- [00:44:49.230]Because I think that basically,
- [00:44:51.650]what I'm saying is that there was a period,
- [00:44:54.470]I think it was kind of high modernism
- [00:44:57.130]would be the high point of it
- [00:44:59.170]where technical thinking, or the kind of thinking
- [00:45:05.200]that we have in the social sciences, or the sciences,
- [00:45:09.150]that somehow tried to dominate architecture.
- [00:45:12.630]There was an incredible pushback to that,
- [00:45:14.710]that was called postmodernism, right?
- [00:45:17.400]And maybe the pendulum swung too far the other way,
- [00:45:20.560]toward, perhaps I'm speculating here, to formalism.
- [00:45:25.250]So actually designing things without the constraints.
- [00:45:28.730]Right, removed from those constraints.
- [00:45:31.870]I think that that's not what our discipline,
- [00:45:35.110]how we should define our discipline, in fact.
- [00:45:38.250]I think that adopting a scientific model,
- [00:45:41.530]for example, is not the way to go.
- [00:45:43.860]I'm so amazed that we would allow, as a discipline,
- [00:45:47.150]like people in the sciences
- [00:45:49.180]to try to define what the design process is.
- [00:45:52.820]Because I don't think they do a very good job of it.
- [00:45:57.414]And in fact as you look at what
- [00:46:01.530]our design profession is, and how we think about design,
- [00:46:08.030]there are a lot of interesting,
- [00:46:10.810]we even have an incredible vocabulary to think about design.
- [00:46:19.266]A vocabulary that started, began with the first academies.
- [00:46:23.400]So a vocabulary that includes
- [00:46:25.280]and I know that there are a lot of architects here,
- [00:46:27.570]like parti, which means take a position.
- [00:46:30.220]For me, designing is about making arguments,
- [00:46:33.060]it's about defining problems because if you define a problem
- [00:46:37.210]you've already got your answer, right?
- [00:46:40.320]So to think that you're just solving problems,
- [00:46:43.190]we're always gonna have the short end of the stick here.
- [00:46:49.860]And also to do it within tight budgets,
- [00:46:53.210]within those constraints, and that's not easy.
- [00:46:58.050]Easy peasy stuff, right?
- [00:47:00.230]But then your students are getting an education.
- [00:47:04.530]I had to learn how to write an academic essay
- [00:47:07.480]because I had decided to pursue a PHD
- [00:47:12.250]and suddenly I was going from the visual, right
- [00:47:15.010]to actually writing an academic,
- [00:47:18.484]writing an academic essay on how to say I learned,
- [00:47:21.130]was really complex to do.
- [00:47:23.660]It's not adopting a scientific model
- [00:47:26.470]of a leads to b leads to c to d.
- [00:47:29.610]It's not linear.
- [00:47:32.786]And I realize that there was a lot of corollary between
- [00:47:42.358]design thinking, coming up with a thesis,
- [00:47:46.950]making arguments, but we make arguments,
- [00:47:50.696]not with words, but obviously in paragraphs.
- [00:47:54.010]But rather we make arguments with space,
- [00:47:57.460]with form, with visual arguments.
- [00:48:05.193]And I think that I would like to celebrate that.
- [00:48:08.130]One last note which is that I'm very pleased
- [00:48:11.577]to see that a lot of architecture schools now,
- [00:48:16.240]they're speaking about you need to have the canon.
- [00:48:19.480]Right, the canon should come back, right?
- [00:48:23.760]Obviously that's music to my ears,
- [00:48:25.850]it makes me feel like relevant.
- [00:48:28.138](laughing)
- [00:48:29.120]Relevant to our discipline.
- [00:48:31.630]I think that is an important element.
- [00:48:34.870]It's not the whole thing, but it is an element.
- [00:48:37.680]And another big thing, I think, are tools.
- [00:48:41.480]Our tools, our digital tools, we're in a dynamic situation.
- [00:48:46.320]So history, the problem with history is if it
- [00:48:48.820]becomes static, right, that it becomes fixed.
- [00:48:52.840]That we're not using it to think what we could be.
- [00:48:57.810]I always say to Jeff, you don't wanna do the latest thing.
- [00:49:01.640]We wanna do the next thing, as a school.
- [00:49:06.320]Anyway, I'll just leave it there.
- [00:49:08.020]Great, thanks.
- [00:49:11.030]Great, I think that kind of defines
- [00:49:14.165]some positions really well, I thought what Chris said
- [00:49:18.880]at the beginning that resonated with me personally
- [00:49:23.000]is that the reason that I got into architecture,
- [00:49:26.300]specifically, is I really enjoyed that in the same
- [00:49:31.950]maybe 10 minute period, I could think about something
- [00:49:35.330]philosophical and conceptual
- [00:49:38.420]and then figure out how do I keep the water from leaking
- [00:49:41.180]into this roof and it's the same conversation.
- [00:49:44.360]Because how you keep the water from leaking into the roof
- [00:49:48.040]ties into how the roof connects to the wall
- [00:49:51.310]and that has a sort of conceptual embodiment to it.
- [00:49:54.730]So the idea that you could, in a discipline,
- [00:49:58.030]move from high philosophical, conceptual thinking
- [00:50:02.990]to bottom level, practical thinking at the same time
- [00:50:07.809]I think is really what makes this an exciting discipline.
- [00:50:10.504]Yeah, and to me it's not like one happens first
- [00:50:13.760]and then the other. Exactly.
- [00:50:16.225]They're informing each other from the get go.
- [00:50:20.688]Yeah, so I guess the first question
- [00:50:24.380]I'd like all of you to maybe respond to
- [00:50:26.986]and you may have already kind of responded
- [00:50:28.640]to it in some way in your discussions,
- [00:50:31.000]but what do you think are the current disruptions
- [00:50:34.610]in both practice or culture or technology,
- [00:50:40.700]politics, whatever it might be,
- [00:50:42.970]that are forcing us to rethink the relationship
- [00:50:46.040]between education and practice?
- [00:50:49.632]What are the changes and the issues?
- [00:50:50.730]And maybe I'm just sort of presuming
- [00:50:53.470]that there is a need to change something
- [00:50:55.464]and you could argue against that point.
- [00:51:01.164](throat clearing)
- [00:51:02.652]Who wants to jump in?
- [00:51:05.888]It seems like that we really haven't
- [00:51:13.470]figured out collaboration yet.
- [00:51:16.480]And this balance between knowing this canon
- [00:51:20.710]and being here disciplinary and collaborative,
- [00:51:23.920]team building, that kind of thing.
- [00:51:27.608]Again, like (mumbles), be at odds.
- [00:51:31.600]I believe the management team (mumbles) absolute important,
- [00:51:37.184]more important now that than it was, and it was in the top
- [00:51:38.800]when I was in, in the 90s.
- [00:51:44.043]No, I was just see, the flip side to that, Brian,
- [00:51:47.936]because I totally agree with you.
- [00:51:49.760]Interdisciplinary collaboration is critical.
- [00:51:52.160]It's really key.
- [00:51:53.828]It's key for practices as well as for the discipline,
- [00:51:58.730]but the flip side of that is that we ourselves have to have
- [00:52:02.910]an expertise to come to the table
- [00:52:05.600]of interdisciplinary collaboration.
- [00:52:09.160]So it's really important again to have, to understand
- [00:52:13.210]what (mumbles) expertise is.
- [00:52:15.998]And I find that a lot of my students, students who really
- [00:52:21.830]excelled at Texas A&M, they went on to Princeton and to Yale
- [00:52:28.996]and to these really very good schools and...
- [00:52:38.500]You know, even if they're not doing architecture
- [00:52:41.690]or building, they're partnering with people in computer
- [00:52:49.470]science, doing designing apps or whatever, but they tell me
- [00:52:55.360]that what they learned at Texas A&M in design studio
- [00:53:01.810]or from their education actually received a lot of
- [00:53:05.690]respect from the people that they were working with
- [00:53:09.500]because they had something I think.
- [00:53:12.670]And so for me, it's so important to be articulate
- [00:53:16.780]or self-aware of what that was.
- [00:53:20.857](mumbles) sorry.
- [00:53:23.400]I think where,
- [00:53:25.477]one of the things maybe that we don't see
- [00:53:26.410]in the representation of the room might enter this.
- [00:53:30.070]There's two parts.
- [00:53:31.633]One we kind of, inadvertently I think maybe we've ignored
- [00:53:35.261]what for me was the intensity of graduate school and that's
- [00:53:41.173]the digital push from 2003 to 2006.
- [00:53:45.700]Yes.
- [00:53:46.533]I was immersed
- [00:53:48.555]in three years of Pitbullish studios
- [00:53:51.195]and there was anything we could do to get wild and crazy
- [00:53:55.830]in the computer and it's maybe still somewhat that way
- [00:53:59.630]at that school.
- [00:54:01.644]It was set up that way.
- [00:54:03.620]But the program was also set up, you had to figure out
- [00:54:06.730]how to build stuff, and we were always making weird stuff.
- [00:54:11.180]And experimenting with weird materials and there was always
- [00:54:15.510]a strangeness to representation, everything.
- [00:54:18.140]It was all kind of out there for the sake
- [00:54:22.840]of being out there and so we kind of skipped over.
- [00:54:28.069]And then there was always visual production, so we're
- [00:54:30.933]seeing stuff, we were (mumbles) panels, we were,
- [00:54:34.540]3D printing really wasn't as good yet so we were still
- [00:54:38.270]somewhat manual in getting digital to output.
- [00:54:43.280]And then the other thing is I think we're in practice.
- [00:54:47.640]We're in Omaha, maybe more so than in other places,
- [00:54:51.930]work position right now, where there's, I think there's
- [00:54:55.010]a big generation shift coming if isn't already happened
- [00:54:57.830]in most places.
- [00:54:59.620]And I think that generational shift is gonna change
- [00:55:02.630]the practice so that the marriage between concept and
- [00:55:07.550]execution will become more and more apparent.
- [00:55:10.260]And I think that starts with people like Jeff and Emily
- [00:55:13.990]at their level and Mike Hamilton and Matt and myself.
- [00:55:18.370]I mean, we're kind of at a, and you guys are all ahead
- [00:55:23.210]of me a few years, but we're all at a spot where
- [00:55:26.560]generationally, that design shift
- [00:55:29.040]is gonna happen in practice.
- [00:55:30.810]So that separation isn't as hard as it maybe once was.
- [00:55:35.580]Unless the schools are somehow putting a wedge in there
- [00:55:40.960]and saying it is about tools and you need the tools
- [00:55:45.320]to go to practice.
- [00:55:47.184]Yeah, my feeling is the same,
- [00:55:49.500]is that as well, Chris.
- [00:55:51.100]It's like, one doesn't know for sure, but I feel that
- [00:55:55.028]what you're saying is right.
- [00:55:59.540]You had also mentioned that you talked about...
- [00:56:04.001]Did you call it transversible expertise?
- [00:56:06.380]Transferrable. Oh, transferrable.
- [00:56:08.160]Transferrable.
- [00:56:08.993]Yeah, and it's something I've asked before.
- [00:56:12.500]I can't remember who, the guys from Atalanta, BLGDS
- [00:56:18.110]in Atlanta, they were here lecturing and I asked them
- [00:56:20.070]about it too because they have a small practice,
- [00:56:23.600]kind of into that, and they've been very...
- [00:56:30.555]They have it specialized, technically, but the way they
- [00:56:34.330]talk about specialization is in being strategic.
- [00:56:40.740]Yes. And taking on,
- [00:56:41.850]taking on the projects that people don't really want because
- [00:56:44.260]they seem too complicated.
- [00:56:45.590]Yes.
- [00:56:46.423]And then the outcome, if you have seen it work,
- [00:56:49.160]the outcomes of those projects are these well considered,
- [00:56:52.230]beautiful solutions. Yes, exactly.
- [00:56:54.580]And in our practice, we highly specialize
- [00:56:58.808]in typical market sectors.
- [00:57:01.436]Yeah.
- [00:57:02.282]So we've got higher ed and you know everything
- [00:57:03.920]you need to know about higher ed to convince, not to
- [00:57:07.680]convince, to be able to go out and win that work.
- [00:57:11.450]We've got early learning people that specialize
- [00:57:14.300]in early learning, senior living people and so for me,
- [00:57:19.060]I've always kind of taken the shotgun approach that it's
- [00:57:22.070]not about-- Exactly.
- [00:57:23.350]Any one market type, it's always about
- [00:57:26.530]that strategic engagement.
- [00:57:29.407]Yes.
- [00:57:30.389]And it's really difficult to define.
- [00:57:32.620]There's not any market sector before that, but you're
- [00:57:35.510]talking about it as if there is, so do you see that
- [00:57:38.890]happens as a specialization somehow,
- [00:57:42.160]and what does that mean?
- [00:57:45.350]Because we call ourselves generalists--
- [00:57:48.730]It's dangerous. It's really dangerous.
- [00:57:51.540]Because we do have to know a little bit about so many
- [00:57:54.540]different things, but to me, those things that we have
- [00:57:57.650]to know about, right?
- [00:57:59.950]To me, they can change up, right?
- [00:58:02.390]I don't have to be an expert in all of those kinds of things
- [00:58:05.250]but that doesn't mean that we ourselves don't have
- [00:58:09.240]an expertise, and I think that that kind of, when you
- [00:58:13.750]mentioned strategic thinking, I think it's design thinking.
- [00:58:19.040]It's a way of looking at the world, I think.
- [00:58:24.120]It's a way of making a mark.
- [00:58:27.230]It's a way off communicating and it's a way of making
- [00:58:31.150]arguments that could be transformative.
- [00:58:34.670]That's what made those small firms survive, that passion
- [00:58:45.140]or that they were deeply committed to design.
- [00:58:54.430]That it has transformative agency, right?
- [00:58:57.930]I think that's pretty amazing.
- [00:59:00.350]That's what I love about architecture and I think that
- [00:59:03.630]our field is very unique and other people want to mimic us
- [00:59:08.320]so we've gotta do a better job.
- [00:59:11.080]I was telling Jeff that I was just listening to CBC Radio
- [00:59:15.910]and there was a very interesting interview with one of
- [00:59:20.660]these idea guys from Stanford.
- [00:59:23.944]I mean, that's our stuff, and it was a lecture on
- [00:59:27.630]designing your life and they're using basically design
- [00:59:34.350]thinking that the process that design process that comes
- [00:59:38.260]from our discipline and goes back a long time, right?
- [00:59:44.910]And I don't think there's any other discipline that has
- [00:59:49.240]thought that way for such a long time, but because,
- [00:59:53.100]out of necessity.
- [00:59:55.989]And even has its own vocabulary.
- [00:59:58.730]Like I love that word, poche.
- [01:00:02.158]And I'm trying to bring back all these terms, right?
- [01:00:06.611]I think it's so brilliant that the term poche which
- [01:00:10.520]means pont it, right?
- [01:00:14.270]And so it's a French term, I think it's so brilliant that
- [01:00:16.510]Louis Kahn reinvented it because
- [01:00:18.920]he was trained in the Bozar
- [01:00:21.021]but he did such a brilliant job so it served in servant
- [01:00:23.080]spaces and I find it very useful to teach students about
- [01:00:26.407]serve and servant spaces that are poche because if they're
- [01:00:30.020]thinking about too many details, too many facts, they can't
- [01:00:35.870]put it together, there's no synthesis, it's too hard.
- [01:00:41.581]But if you think in terms of poche, you're already putting
- [01:00:44.440]two things together, two different things together and you
- [01:00:49.230]have a way of thinking how to organize something spatially.
- [01:00:54.180]I think that's so brilliant to me.
- [01:00:57.630]And yeah, you know what?
- [01:00:59.130]I hear the term poche, it's coming back.
- [01:01:02.664]I even hear Simard people use the term poche.
- [01:01:12.272]No, think that the issues you're talking about
- [01:01:16.210]in terms of the discipline at its core, some of those issues
- [01:01:21.100]are coming back.
- [01:01:22.655]Maybe it's the post digital generation, sort of thinking
- [01:01:27.355]that they don't have to do crazy form on the computer
- [01:01:29.780]anymore, that they can, they've absorbed that and then they
- [01:01:34.272]can start talking about poche and parti, sort of more
- [01:01:38.250]classical terms, but through the language of their--
- [01:01:43.253]Of their (foreign language).
- [01:01:44.800]Expertise. Yes.
- [01:01:47.729]And then do something (mumbles) interesting
- [01:01:49.531]sort of situation that I find in our school, students are
- [01:01:55.355]doing work in that vein and very few faculty understand
- [01:02:00.020]what they're dealing with except
- [01:02:01.780]for maybe some visiting faculty (mumbles).
- [01:02:05.659]Well, if you don't mind, Jeff, just for our
- [01:02:07.900]audience, I don't know if people have heard the word
- [01:02:11.820]post-digital but just to avoid a massive misunderstanding,
- [01:02:16.880]the post-digital is all about the digital.
- [01:02:20.000]It's about the pervasiveness of the digital today.
- [01:02:27.339]Like you can do mud bugs and there's YouTube videos
- [01:02:31.610]on how to use that tool.
- [01:02:34.870]We've got amazing tools now, for drawing, for modeling,
- [01:02:41.986]and we should definitely, our students need to be very
- [01:02:47.340]conversant with those tools, absolutely.
- [01:02:51.210]That's our dynamic context.
- [01:02:54.260]So Chris, you said something about the way you're
- [01:02:59.710]thinking about the work in your, or critiquing the sort
- [01:03:03.260]of sector based structure of your firm.
- [01:03:07.805]You were critiquing that from a small firm perspective
- [01:03:09.450]and Sarah says that the small firms don't specialize,
- [01:03:13.270]they have to be nimble. Yeah.
- [01:03:15.744]Do you think the practice of the scale of your firm
- [01:03:18.380]or larger firms can act that way?
- [01:03:21.683]We talked about big and (mumbles) and that they don't
- [01:03:27.320]claim to specialize in that sense, but this is the way
- [01:03:32.210]that most of these medium to big firms--
- [01:03:35.288]How do you negotiate that?
- [01:03:36.910]I was gonna ask, I think that's a question
- [01:03:39.790]that actually translates into curriculum and education
- [01:03:45.420]because we're talking about training students to have
- [01:03:49.840]that capacity and to understand that there's not, and Brian
- [01:03:54.707]and I have a history, but to understand that there's not
- [01:03:57.750]one way to do things.
- [01:04:03.607]And to kind of--
- [01:04:05.148](mumbles)?
- [01:04:05.981]Yeah, but to broaden that understanding and I've
- [01:04:07.450]seen myself students who, and I remember even years ago
- [01:04:12.630]as a young student, who was the chair when I came in?
- [01:04:19.010]It was, there was David, and so the chair when I was a very
- [01:04:25.022]young architect pulled a bunch of us aside and I think
- [01:04:27.760]we were in our freshman year and he asked us all what
- [01:04:30.440]architecture was and we thought we were so convinced
- [01:04:32.740]we knew what it was, and it was and still is probably
- [01:04:35.550]the big question for most of us if we accept that that
- [01:04:39.830]is the question, but at what point or how does education
- [01:04:47.140]help to shift that and so we're not necessarily focused
- [01:04:51.590]on specialization, but there's an understanding of broad
- [01:04:54.940]range of tools to become an architect with.
- [01:05:00.908]Is that just part of the program or what makes that happen?
- [01:05:04.960]How do students come out and understand that they are--
- [01:05:10.740]How do two year students go out (mumbles)
- [01:05:13.160]and still somehow have careers?
- [01:05:16.210]So many of our students just disappear into
- [01:05:18.571]the netherworld, wherever else they (mumbles) don't have
- [01:05:24.161](mumbles) and that's the big part of, I kind of wonder if,
- [01:05:34.910]for me, I feel like it's part of being a small school
- [01:05:37.980]but also just the general attitudes.
- [01:05:44.196]I think it's okay to be a generalist in school when you know
- [01:05:47.076]that your career's gonna be specialized and specializing in
- [01:05:50.470]school, as soon as they're all going through ESAP, but we
- [01:05:56.620]really do, unlike medical school or law school, we have
- [01:05:59.550]an incredible number of our grads going off into other
- [01:06:02.010]worlds and percolating through banking and real estate
- [01:06:05.790]and gelato shops and whatever it is they all do.
- [01:06:08.131]The all relate to.
- [01:06:10.303]We had a graduate at Texas Tech that
- [01:06:11.938]invented the Christmas hanger.
- [01:06:14.750]Now I'm just thinking.
- [01:06:17.007]I see that for me, that creates a lot of confusion.
- [01:06:21.940]I mean, I've heard faculty members, they will try to make
- [01:06:29.870]the argument, correct me if I'm wrong
- [01:06:31.840]or if I've misunderstood
- [01:06:33.190]what you were saying, but that there's no real kind of
- [01:06:40.980]utility that we shouldn't be teaching students how to
- [01:06:44.450]design buildings, because they're not gonna-
- [01:06:46.647]No, no, just the exact opposite, reverse that.
- [01:06:50.490]Okay, sorry. We're overrunning,
- [01:06:51.560]that's what I'm saying.
- [01:06:53.644]Sorry, it took me.
- [01:06:55.613]It's the old both end.
- [01:06:57.630]Well, it's also, how do we problematize, in a
- [01:07:01.800]conceptual aspect in very artful ways.
- [01:07:05.150]These questions of management, these questions of
- [01:07:08.392]specification, these questions of, and if we can't,
- [01:07:11.932]then (mumbles) fear a little bit, 'cause this is really
- [01:07:17.753]what it's about.
- [01:07:19.670]Hopefully it's marshaling materials and labor and all this
- [01:07:23.180]stuff to get the world built, but we're, so there's this
- [01:07:29.680]complexity to it, but it seems like there are, across time,
- [01:07:36.480]as architectural pedagogies, there are things that seem
- [01:07:42.210]totally superfluous, totally irrelevant, totally random
- [01:07:46.260]almost to the outside that actually are incredibly strong
- [01:07:49.910]training tools, and maybe our community's (mumbles).
- [01:07:53.410]Maybe our design build, and maybe our medical studios
- [01:07:57.520]and just curl up and look at what's his name?
- [01:08:04.140]Your shooting guy?
- [01:08:06.789]Your shot guy?
- [01:08:08.900]In your (mumbles) school.
- [01:08:12.100]Oh, Brett?
- [01:08:13.300]What's his name?
- [01:08:14.133]No, not Brett.
- [01:08:17.870]Oh, wild Bill (mumbles), yes.
- [01:08:20.197]You know, it's about setting the path of what
- [01:08:21.466](mumbles) for all (mumbles).
- [01:08:27.000]And that also too is still okay.
- [01:08:31.710]But it's only because it's like a jumping jack
- [01:08:33.840]or a calisthenic or, I don't have any,
- [01:08:37.130]so I guess where we're at is we've,
- [01:08:40.810]I should have said this earlier.
- [01:08:42.480]We've spent the last eight years pouring ourselves out
- [01:08:44.930]into the communities around us, engaging them professionally
- [01:08:49.140]as much as we could, and now that we're going through a
- [01:08:52.320]final accreditation to give us eight years of time, we're
- [01:08:55.350]gonna rip it all up and repaint the studios.
- [01:08:57.630]So, so how much time and I think this is universal.
- [01:09:02.060]How much time do students spend of the 168 hours,
- [01:09:09.380]how much time do they spend working on their projects
- [01:09:12.390]as if they're real world projects where there's actually
- [01:09:14.630]going through let's say four phases of design, five phases
- [01:09:18.865]of a project and they're actually having to prepare
- [01:09:22.850]construction documents and edit specifications to accompany
- [01:09:26.470]that, to tell someone else how to build it and I somewhat
- [01:09:30.620]do know the answer but why can't studios take that on?
- [01:09:35.750]Is it a time constraint?
- [01:09:37.780]We should be designing, I'm with you, we should be in the
- [01:09:40.270]middle of designing how specifications tell somebody
- [01:09:44.500]what they're going.
- [01:09:46.932]Right, but I can do that by sitting (mumbles).
- [01:09:49.670]There's this all broad range of people that are in analogous
- [01:09:54.670]conditions to (mumbles).
- [01:09:57.948]What we're feeling is we need to do less and go deeper.
- [01:10:03.015](mumbles) model of, instead of being everything to everybody
- [01:10:07.890]you have to be incredibly specific.
- [01:10:11.150]Let's go back to just doing a little bit, a lot, and then
- [01:10:14.210]the thing that scares me about, my biggest complaint about
- [01:10:17.790]watching us go out and be out so much is I think the time
- [01:10:20.533]that got eaten up is the incredibly critical time
- [01:10:23.570]of reflection.
- [01:10:25.170]So much project happens that in school, there's not that
- [01:10:30.586](mumbles) moments of deep reflection where I look back
- [01:10:34.410]on what I did, I consider what I invented, I critique it,
- [01:10:38.150]I analyze it, I portfolioize it, I do all those things to it
- [01:10:41.803]that churn it through my head to make
- [01:10:43.080]really stand out the lesson.
- [01:10:46.950]And it can be building.
- [01:10:48.810]I make fun of one of my former colleagues who used to only
- [01:10:51.060]work in suitcases.
- [01:10:52.740]Like, those were always his sites, were suitcases,
- [01:10:55.480]and it was a little bit absurd but there were some strong
- [01:11:00.713]lessons to be found in it.
- [01:11:03.393]I don't know, I didn't take the studio.
- [01:11:05.780]Yeah, I think that some schools have this model
- [01:11:08.270]where every student has to do a housing project, cultural
- [01:11:11.020]project and speculative design thing and it is kind of
- [01:11:18.090]everything you might do in school, or in practice, you're
- [01:11:21.920]getting a little bit of experience of it and then there's
- [01:11:24.300]other models like the AA and some of those London schools
- [01:11:27.880]where you can go to graduate school and do one project
- [01:11:31.150]for two years, and that's it, but you get into an incredible
- [01:11:36.621]amount of depth, amount of reflection, and you're doing
- [01:11:38.240]things, it's just very different models for how that
- [01:11:44.420]comes together and I think that the challenges that we face
- [01:11:50.478]is trying to figure out what's the best model
- [01:11:54.710]and what works.
- [01:11:57.783]Are we reflecting on it?
- [01:11:59.313]That's, I think, is fundamentally the problem
- [01:12:01.850]is that we, and what I said at the very beginning that we
- [01:12:05.950]know what we wanna do but we don't know what we wanna do
- [01:12:08.750]is actually produce it.
- [01:12:11.386]Yes. 'Cause we're not
- [01:12:12.219]reflecting on what it does.
- [01:12:13.900]So we're not working sociology.
- [01:12:17.480]And sociology says that they can help us see exactly
- [01:12:21.050]that thing is when we go and we're working in Walbridge
- [01:12:24.470]or Volta or Heron or Webster and we pour out hundreds of
- [01:12:30.020]student hours and faculty hours and marshal up money
- [01:12:34.560]from precasters and all this kind of stuff,
- [01:12:38.150]what was the impact?
- [01:12:39.400]What was (mumbles) do, did we create public space?
- [01:12:41.650]We think we did, but do we really know?
- [01:12:43.642]'Cause we don't live there,
- [01:12:44.610]and can you really create spaces?
- [01:12:46.130]This is my favorite question, in a 1300 person town?
- [01:12:50.430]You read (mumbles), it ain't possible.
- [01:12:53.280]He just says like no, it isn't gonna happen.
- [01:12:56.540]But I've been doing this for years and I've been taking
- [01:13:00.020]the time to reflect on these things, to build that
- [01:13:04.240]historical sensibilities back into it.
- [01:13:08.080]To tie myself back to those things and I think it's pretty
- [01:13:13.350]well written here, especially in Omaha, but there's
- [01:13:15.630]not a, part of the reason there's no big AA architecture up
- [01:13:19.950]is because there's no narrative history reflects.
- [01:13:22.190]Nobody knows how it happened.
- [01:13:24.350]Sort of, was up there and they had to build an interstate
- [01:13:28.080]across it at one point and there was some rocks and cars
- [01:13:31.222]and things, and (mumbles), if you say what's the greatest,
- [01:13:37.069]it's this hot thing that, so how do we, my wife's a
- [01:13:43.310]creative writer and I watch her classes and a third of
- [01:13:48.040]her classes are built on reflection.
- [01:13:50.110]And she's always telling me "We need to stop the studios
- [01:13:52.347]"earlier, put the work up on the wall, and really give them
- [01:13:57.087]"that work, their reflection, it needs other than just that
- [01:13:59.267]"day of review."
- [01:14:00.850]She's really critical of us, she loves, they're fascinated
- [01:14:04.350]with us pinning stuff up.
- [01:14:06.415]They've never seen that before, and also the fact that
- [01:14:10.509]we all have discussions like this between faculty and
- [01:14:15.720]practitioners that in the English faculty, Jeff knows this.
- [01:14:20.380]You have no idea what you're calling (mumbles) classroom.
- [01:14:23.807]You don't go and hang your poetry up on the wall and be
- [01:14:25.540]like "Oh, I see you're doing something (mumbles)."
- [01:14:29.708]Yeah.
- [01:14:30.541]But it's, yeah.
- [01:14:33.800]I think that, the history of (mumbles) critically that
- [01:14:38.992]if I can't look at what (mumbles) doing before in reflection
- [01:14:42.329]of what I've done, we're shortchanging students
- [01:14:46.190]incredibly (mumbles).
- [01:14:50.180]And we're trying to do it.
- [01:14:52.279]If I don't do what Chris is asking for, where I have a whole
- [01:14:54.250]studio of comprehensive, and then the semester afterwards
- [01:14:58.380]we have a smaller class, then as a reflection on what that
- [01:15:01.200]was and how it happened, instead of oh.
- [01:15:05.510]I think that obviously, reflection is part
- [01:15:09.040]of the critical process, but I think that in some ways
- [01:15:14.560]and you know, I guess doing the studio,
- [01:15:18.430]and it's a generational thing also how studios have changed
- [01:15:22.770]over generations, but I know that there are some studios
- [01:15:26.770]where they spend all their time reflecting.
- [01:15:30.201]And I think that's really healthy at a certain level,
- [01:15:33.764]but at the same time, I wonder how well does that, if you're
- [01:15:37.770]just doing that and you can't do it faster, how well does
- [01:15:41.710]that translate when you go into practice?
- [01:15:45.145]When you have incredible budget constraints?
- [01:15:49.920]Nobody's paying you for that.
- [01:15:51.800]And that's the practice.
- [01:15:53.300]Like, the successful practices that are doing good work--
- [01:15:58.580]Exactly. Are able to do that quickly.
- [01:16:01.641]But they do.
- [01:16:02.743]Yeah.
- [01:16:03.576]It's not like, okay, we don't do it.
- [01:16:05.130]Yeah.
- [01:16:06.795]That's your split right there.
- [01:16:08.261]That's one symptom of the split.
- [01:16:11.390]And when you were talking, Brian, I was thinking about
- [01:16:16.030]different models, not just different models in our
- [01:16:19.840]contemporary landscape, so other schools that are really
- [01:16:23.150]doing quite interesting things to me,
- [01:16:25.610]like Rice, we talked about Rice
- [01:16:29.402]and Robert Solo and University of Illinois in Chicago
- [01:16:37.540]and SY Art and I was thinking about the earlier nine square
- [01:16:46.240]grid projects and Alexander Caragonne who, very good
- [01:16:51.310]friends with the Texas Rangers, so that started
- [01:16:54.040]the UT osiphy.
- [01:16:55.810]So somehow, that, from what I understood in looking at,
- [01:17:01.340]reading a lot of Collin Rowe for example and then also
- [01:17:05.270]studying, Alexander Caragonne, he's a really good historian
- [01:17:11.985]and he gives a great documentation of what they were
- [01:17:16.650]trying to do and it was actually, Bernard Hurley
- [01:17:19.030]who's an architect and Collin Rowe who's a historian
- [01:17:22.305]at Berasest of the Tant Design Studio.
- [01:17:25.950]And the intention of the nine square grid was not
- [01:17:29.240]a formalist project.
- [01:17:32.050]The nine square grid was to get students to think who are
- [01:17:37.431]entering design synthetically, from the get-go.
- [01:17:42.269]So it wasn't about, they had the problem that okay, students
- [01:17:45.470]are just learning the technical details, but how do you
- [01:17:49.270]get a design, designs are really crappy, right?
- [01:17:53.469]And then they opposite of that was that you do,
- [01:17:56.270]form a project, right?
- [01:17:59.820]It's not even taking on one constraint.
- [01:18:03.650]So they were trying to create these exercises where there
- [01:18:09.010]was complexity from the get-go, right?
- [01:18:13.300]Rather than trying to create
- [01:18:18.960]a design process that doesn't work.
- [01:18:21.884]Or follow a design process that doesn't work,
- [01:18:24.503]where all the data leads to the design.
- [01:18:27.463]That's called evidence based design,
- [01:18:29.218]but that's a conceit.
- [01:18:33.780]I just think that that is interesting about the nine square
- [01:18:36.830]grid because when I was a student, I thought the
- [01:18:39.730]nine square grid was a formal project.
- [01:18:42.280]I didn't understand that it was actually a synthetic
- [01:18:46.680]exercise, to think about complexity, do a design
- [01:18:52.600]from the get go.
- [01:18:53.990]You start with not one, but two.
- [01:18:58.841](mumbles)
- [01:19:00.057]So could we talk a little bit more about
- [01:19:01.536]formalization and informalization because essentially,
- [01:19:04.520]so architecture is one of these (mumbles) nine percent.
- [01:19:07.500]So nine percent of US adults have a Bachelor's degree
- [01:19:11.206]or higher and working in their field, so architects,
- [01:19:13.280]attorneys, physicians, they have a degree to practice.
- [01:19:18.610]And so we're talking about formalizing the knowledge base
- [01:19:23.630]and have this can of information that we transfer on
- [01:19:27.350]but immediately upon graduation, if they go into
- [01:19:29.600]architecture, then they are continuing with an informal
- [01:19:32.780]education, ostensibly in their practice.
- [01:19:36.320]So they're learning from those people around them
- [01:19:38.950]and learning the practical applications
- [01:19:41.130]that they're forming, education.
- [01:19:43.610]And I'm curious because essentially at the end of the day,
- [01:19:48.408]the clients are all, actually I shouldn't say none,
- [01:19:50.880]but most of the people who are hiring are not training
- [01:19:54.480]so we have this interplay between formal education,
- [01:19:56.870]informal education back and forth and especially the
- [01:19:59.720]bottom lens work that we're talking about here is
- [01:20:03.210]based on the value of lived experiences which students
- [01:20:11.560]generally don't have in architecture programs.
- [01:20:15.460]So I'm curious if we can talk about the flux there.
- [01:20:20.845]Unless you say putting together a formal program and then
- [01:20:22.680]putting people out in the world and seeing, what it is
- [01:20:26.627]that you want to produce at the end of that student's
- [01:20:31.747](mumbles), at that graduation point that prepares them
- [01:20:35.360]for that informal education where they have to learn
- [01:20:39.840]and eventually accommodate a managing partner?
- [01:20:44.450]A lot of those folks are the architects who have to
- [01:20:49.540]take that informal leap from practicing architect into
- [01:20:58.188]the managing partner.
- [01:20:59.830]Generally it's an informal process.
- [01:21:03.115]So I'm just kind of curious how all this stuff kind of
- [01:21:03.948]wraps together in creating a fully formed person
- [01:21:06.940]at the end.
- [01:21:09.090]Question.
- [01:21:10.940]Well, that was a great, that's what I think a good program
- [01:21:16.050]aspires to do, really.
- [01:21:19.270]I think that...
- [01:21:25.190]I think that there is a value in an architectural education.
- [01:21:29.100]I have to say that and I have to believe that there's
- [01:21:31.900]a value in an architectural education and whether they go on
- [01:21:37.330]to become, like IBM, they came to our school for career day
- [01:21:44.170]and they said to me "Oh, we love architecture students."
- [01:21:48.810]Because they recognized our value, right?
- [01:21:53.060]So I think that we have a...
- [01:21:56.350]I mean, for me, I think it would be sad when you graduate,
- [01:22:00.873]that our students are graduating and they don't know
- [01:22:05.849]what they learned.
- [01:22:07.450]They weren't self aware of what they learned.
- [01:22:11.071]That's not saying that they, design is open ended, right?
- [01:22:18.220]So that's not saying that you're going to be, you do this,
- [01:22:21.170]then you're gonna be that.
- [01:22:24.692]So that's the informal element that you're talking about
- [01:22:27.350]and I think that the beauty of design and actually being
- [01:22:33.630]trained in design in a field like architecture prepares
- [01:22:38.030]the student actually to think outside the box, right?
- [01:22:47.350]To think synthetically.
- [01:22:49.180]To collaborate with others.
- [01:22:50.790]I mean, they may become, at the end of the day, we wanna
- [01:22:57.330]be educating also leaders, the next leaders of the field
- [01:23:03.710]and I think that architecture as a discipline and I know I'm
- [01:23:07.710]asking you to trust me, can do that.
- [01:23:12.991]I think that architecture as a field can do that.
- [01:23:14.800]We can train the next leaders.
- [01:23:17.450]I think that there are elements that are really important
- [01:23:20.687]in a curriculum, so the digital tools we had already
- [01:23:26.610]mentioned is really important.
- [01:23:30.430]visual communication, the capacity to make arguments,
- [01:23:36.169]the capacity to work with others, really,
- [01:23:39.020]is really important.
- [01:23:41.428]The capacity to be creative within constraints.
- [01:23:44.160]Those are all things that I think, social sciences,
- [01:23:47.930]sociology, they didn't do that.
- [01:23:49.870]Or maybe they do now.
- [01:23:51.480]Back in the day they didn't but I think that we have a
- [01:24:00.770]pretty good field.
- [01:24:05.000]I don't know, I think that there's maybe
- [01:24:08.650]a false expectation of students both, maybe it's just kind
- [01:24:15.900]of an idea or an ideology that they come out of school
- [01:24:20.040]ready to practice or within three years they can get
- [01:24:22.690]licensed and be ready to practice and to some extent,
- [01:24:27.430]maybe that's possible, but there's a 12 year learning curve
- [01:24:35.730]sometimes in the practice and there's relationships,
- [01:24:43.880]there's a technical side and all of the stuff you have
- [01:24:45.760]to learn there, then there's also you're talking about
- [01:24:48.870]how does a student come out and work with a client?
- [01:24:50.760]Well, a lot of times, that doesn't happen and there's
- [01:24:53.870]a buffer between those two things because talking to
- [01:24:57.640]a client that is not educated as an architect, takes a
- [01:25:01.940]certain understanding by an architect to be able to
- [01:25:05.620]craft it in a certain way.
- [01:25:07.730]It's like you guys might be people who aren't trained in
- [01:25:10.030]architecture are sitting in the room here tonight I can
- [01:25:13.220]imagine like what the hell are we talking about again?
- [01:25:20.489]How does that relate to what I do every day?
- [01:25:22.200]And that's a very real circumstance that we have
- [01:25:26.500]to figure out daily.
- [01:25:31.545]Just to add to that, I feel like taking 12 years,
- [01:25:33.680]that's too long.
- [01:25:35.747]That's way too long.
- [01:25:36.737]Is that a license? No, not 12 years
- [01:25:38.590]to get a license, but I'm saying there's a learning curve
- [01:25:42.430]in the profession.
- [01:25:43.290]But there was a-- I exaggerate.
- [01:25:45.317]There's a generation where the statistics are
- [01:25:48.880]that it's taking our students way too long to get that
- [01:25:53.200]license and some never get it,
- [01:25:55.847]and I think we have to do much better.
- [01:25:59.470]Yeah, but at the same time, I'm really skeptical
- [01:26:01.700]about the push for licensure upon graduation because
- [01:26:07.140]I mean if you think about the history of architectural
- [01:26:08.940]education began as an apprenticeship before there
- [01:26:12.201]was a school. Yeah.
- [01:26:13.430]Like, you would just go and work for, (mumbles)
- [01:26:16.530]or some thing, right?
- [01:26:18.107]And you'd work there and then eventually you got to
- [01:26:20.780]go and do your own thing.
- [01:26:22.040]Yes, and last (mumbles).
- [01:26:25.798]Yeah, and I think when formal architectural
- [01:26:28.850]education began, the notion was sort of split that you would
- [01:26:32.590]have a formal piece and an apprenticeship piece and that's
- [01:26:36.190]still essentially the way it works is that you have to have
- [01:26:40.280]the X number of NCARP acquired AXP hours in office before
- [01:26:49.410]you can get your license an all of these folks that are
- [01:26:52.780]pushing to have that happen within the school are
- [01:26:55.610]forgetting the fact that you can't teach everything
- [01:26:58.660]in a classroom that you encounter in a practice situation.
- [01:27:03.700]That model still has some relevance.
- [01:27:07.410]Well, absolutely.
- [01:27:08.966]I think keeping it from getting to be 12 years
- [01:27:10.840]is important, moving to the exam system seems to have sped
- [01:27:15.910]things up a little bit.
- [01:27:17.480]Yeah.
- [01:27:18.630]I mean, back in the ancient days when I took
- [01:27:20.360]the exams, you had to, it was offered once a year and if
- [01:27:25.000]you failed, next June--
- [01:27:27.330]I know. Studied a little harder.
- [01:27:29.670]Exactly, yeah, that's not good, yeah.
- [01:27:33.490]I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned the
- [01:27:36.480]apprenticeship model because there are still schools
- [01:27:39.420]that do the apprenticeship model and so just to take one
- [01:27:44.300]example, it's (mumbles), it's in Texas, so it's Rice
- [01:27:47.780]and gosh, I mean, because that school is so small though,
- [01:27:52.920]they're placing their students in OMA and Renzo Piano
- [01:27:59.606]and they get that apprenticeship, but there's an incredible,
- [01:28:04.443]she has set it up so that there's an incredible,
- [01:28:06.150]what's the word, continuity between what they're learning
- [01:28:10.060]in school and then practice.
- [01:28:13.798]So our problem then is how do we do that without necessarily
- [01:28:19.260]having that kind of, we're bigger,
- [01:28:24.020]we're not too big, though?
- [01:28:28.081]So that's something to think about I guess.
- [01:28:30.470]I think you do a good job, Jeff, because you have your own
- [01:28:35.550]practice and you have students that are continuing under you
- [01:28:41.620]and are encountering, there probably is very good
- [01:28:45.850]continuity here.
- [01:28:48.370]One thing that I really appreciate about you, Jeff, is that
- [01:28:51.050]you do have one foot in practice.
- [01:28:53.980]That's important.
- [01:28:55.710]I have two feet in practice
- [01:28:57.505]and two feet in teaching.
- [01:28:58.480](laughing)
- [01:29:01.302](mumbles)
- [01:29:04.502]And you're about six feet, so you can go on
- [01:29:05.690]to two extra feet.
- [01:29:06.590]I got some extra feet to (mumbles).
- [01:29:08.879]And (mumbles) they have
- [01:29:09.712]a very small practice, right?
- [01:29:13.100]You've got, right?
- [01:29:14.460]And Chris, you've (mumbles) help us.
- [01:29:18.140]I would ask Jeff the question, is there a feedback
- [01:29:22.380]cycle, does being in practice make you a better teacher
- [01:29:25.900]and vice versa?
- [01:29:29.030]Personally, I think so.
- [01:29:30.962]I don't know that it's because of this sort of standard
- [01:29:34.040]expectation that I know stuff from practice that I can
- [01:29:37.320]teach my students, but I think
- [01:29:41.010]it's more of a personal thing.
- [01:29:43.690]And there's a lot of academic practitioners who do both
- [01:29:47.630]and that's not a rare thing at all.
- [01:29:50.924]The small firms.
- [01:29:51.802]Maybe not as common in the Midwest as it is
- [01:29:53.410]in the east and west coast worlds, I mean if you were
- [01:29:56.750]at SAR, basically everybody who taught your studio
- [01:29:58.900]probably had a practice, right?
- [01:30:01.090]Maybe it's speculative. That's right.
- [01:30:02.640]Some form of practice, and it may not have been--
- [01:30:06.910]They had a studio, yeah.
- [01:30:07.860]They did it stuff.
- [01:30:09.842]They worked.
- [01:30:12.210]I think that's really an important part of that.
- [01:30:18.920]I mean, there's changing things that occur in practice
- [01:30:20.900]that impact what I do in teaching and the things that I
- [01:30:24.930]encounter in the school and in fact, that I do in the
- [01:30:27.940]practice certainly, whether it's from students or from
- [01:30:30.590]other faculty and so (mumbles).
- [01:30:34.946]And I've been on the other side of that question,
- [01:30:39.200]where I've gotten quite a bit of pushback from firms
- [01:30:44.380]that I've worked for for teaching where they've def
- [01:30:47.400]criticized it and what's interesting about it is what
- [01:30:52.850]Jeff is saying, there's a reciprocity that people don't
- [01:30:57.250]calculate between practice and academia and on one hand
- [01:31:00.880]you're bringing professional knowledge into the school,
- [01:31:04.353]but when you're in school, you have to be able to concisely
- [01:31:11.380]synthesize that information and to deliver it to studios.
- [01:31:14.991]You have to present in a particular way.
- [01:31:17.680]You're always on.
- [01:31:19.210]A studio's about four hours, three times a week
- [01:31:22.310]or two times a week, depending on what it is and you're on
- [01:31:25.320]for four hours, minus maybe a break somewhere in there,
- [01:31:28.500]with 12 students.
- [01:31:31.028]And in practice, You'll see that there are lulls at
- [01:31:34.170]certain points and it's a difference that I think you
- [01:31:42.560]necessarily need to have both experiences to be successful
- [01:31:47.150]in practice and and then maybe
- [01:31:48.910]also be successful in teaching.
- [01:31:52.000]And that's, again, personal.
- [01:31:53.280]Jeff said that's personal.
- [01:31:55.287]And that's one of the (mumbles) because I've
- [01:31:57.490]always had a hard time doing the same thing every day,
- [01:32:00.711]and I graduated from college, I worked for an architect
- [01:32:02.510]three days a week and for a sculpture (mumbles) studio
- [01:32:05.474](mumbles) two days a week.
- [01:32:07.233]I couldn't stomach the idea of working five days a week
- [01:32:09.533]in the same place.
- [01:32:14.630](mumbles) the original, sorry, (mumbles) question.
- [01:32:18.360]I think one thing we also need to remember that we do here
- [01:32:20.840]in the university that makes the education we do incredibly
- [01:32:23.890]rich are two things really.
- [01:32:25.890]One of them is that we hold the birthright and we are
- [01:32:28.060]the only ones left who draw things out, figure stuff out,
- [01:32:33.070]and graphically, we're the last people within the campus
- [01:32:35.570]to do these things. That's a good point.
- [01:32:37.580]And this is (mumbles) part of this.
- [01:32:40.190]The other one is we're, I think the reason other industries
- [01:32:44.100]pick up our graduates so much is 'cause we're intellectual
- [01:32:46.590]thinkers, we think do bottom up.
- [01:32:49.583]Yeah.
- [01:32:50.416]Simultaneous. Yeah.
- [01:32:52.208]Synthetic thinking that that tinkering, because
- [01:32:55.920]if there's anything I want my graduates from the school
- [01:32:59.590]that I'm part of to be capable of, it's to think of all
- [01:33:04.010]the possibilities and then choose from which one it is.
- [01:33:06.310]That's the way we operate.
- [01:33:07.190]We're not like lawyers where we go by a case study and we
- [01:33:09.980]say "Okay, last (mumbles) engineers, (mumbles)."
- [01:33:14.719](laughing)
- [01:33:15.552]The last dam we built held water, it seems that it'd be
- [01:33:18.790]cost effective, let's do one just like that again.
- [01:33:24.048]We sit physically on campus among the engineering school
- [01:33:28.350]or college and we get a lot of students who are shop
- [01:33:31.690]high school, between civil engineering and tech engineering
- [01:33:35.907]and I like to say we (mumbles) could do, you should do.
- [01:33:41.949]And there's that, just the tinkering, how do you teach,
- [01:33:46.850]I think this is (mumbles).
- [01:33:51.092]How do you know it's right and it's not right?
- [01:33:53.550]It's worse.
- [01:33:56.430]Maybe I don't know about it.
- [01:33:57.913](laughing)
- [01:33:59.892]Yeah, I think it's one of the things that I saw was
- [01:34:01.960]in the school is try to resist any attempt to sort of
- [01:34:06.906]create a sort of scientific form of design, so evidenced
- [01:34:10.170]base design and there's certain people in the college
- [01:34:12.650]who've pushed that and I've really resisted it because
- [01:34:16.580]I think there is no linear way to go from measuring this
- [01:34:20.550]break to designing a new building to make it perfect
- [01:34:23.747]in every word.
- [01:34:24.800]It misses what our discipline is about.
- [01:34:26.906]There's (mumbles) the evidence much better and we have
- [01:34:31.350]something in our field that is unique, which is the
- [01:34:34.840]abductive thinking way of exploring a range of things and
- [01:34:39.470]then suddenly coming up with something new.
- [01:34:41.480]Yeah, it's a leap of faith.
- [01:34:43.200]Yeah, which is ...
- [01:34:44.690]One of the things that we,
- [01:34:46.651]we have a responsibility, whether we like it or not or
- [01:34:49.270]whether it's that, I feel we do, is just one of those
- [01:34:52.770]disruption things we were talking about is that we talk
- [01:34:58.020]about this wonderful, amazing technology and tools we have
- [01:35:01.144]coming out but the desire and the natural proclivity
- [01:35:04.080]of profession to turn these in logistically time savers,
- [01:35:08.453]we can dream in the '70s what VIM was gonna become but we
- [01:35:13.240]know what VIM is becoming.
- [01:35:15.910]And it's so much more about specification and how do we,
- [01:35:20.006]you know, much less specification now because--
- [01:35:22.320]Yeah.
- [01:35:23.816](mumbles) we had a (mumbles).
- [01:35:26.249]I'm totally for anything that's going to, any
- [01:35:28.430]technology that's going to make our workflow faster.
- [01:35:34.170]That's gonna help us, right?
- [01:35:36.910]But not adopting some other kinda way of thinking.
- [01:35:40.780]That is not us.
- [01:35:43.516]And that's gonna go against us, like having a computer
- [01:35:46.896]design for us, completely expendable.
- [01:35:51.570]We write ourselves out of a job, basically.
- [01:35:56.672]So we don't like SketchUp.
- [01:35:58.610]I love SketchUp.
- [01:35:59.839]Yeah, so do we.
- [01:36:02.095]I love SketchUp, it's fast.
- [01:36:04.138]Yeah, SketchUp nearly ruined our school.
- [01:36:06.335]Oh, really?
- [01:36:07.168]Yeah, it nearly took it down.
- [01:36:09.496]You know what?
- [01:36:11.020]Seriously, because there was an idea
- [01:36:13.890]introduced by an assistant professor
- [01:36:15.710]that if you introduce SketchUp which is really
- [01:36:18.690]easy to learn in like the first and second year,
- [01:36:21.790]students will graduate to more complex software.
- [01:36:24.000]Well, no, basically, you had students doing thesis projects
- [01:36:28.520]in SketchUp that were completely weak and unrigorous
- [01:36:32.340]because they never graduated to Rhino or forms (mumbles)
- [01:36:37.118]other things that we were using.
- [01:36:39.860]But to me, a lot of different software, whether
- [01:36:41.840]it's MAYA, SketchUp, I mean, students need to know
- [01:36:46.870]like a range.
- [01:36:48.130]Yes, they do.
- [01:36:49.940]For me, the kiss of death is not SketchUp.
- [01:36:52.890]It's using software for-- If you only know SketchUp,
- [01:36:59.065]but if you're gonna use the tool--
- [01:37:01.394]We had to take the nuclear option to SketchUp.
- [01:37:04.100]Well, I think that if you have a range,
- [01:37:07.560]that's the key.
- [01:37:08.393]Not which software we're gonna use, but are you using
- [01:37:12.800]the right tool for the right thing?
- [01:37:14.400]Yeah. Right?
- [01:37:16.000]And one software program is not gonna do it, but anything
- [01:37:20.170]that's gonna speed up the process, what's wrong with that?
- [01:37:27.225]I'll totally take the (mumbles) to this.
- [01:37:30.228]I think a lot of stuff that happens at the academy
- [01:37:31.150]should be slow, absolutely ground down.
- [01:37:35.540]It should be stibble drawings.
- [01:37:38.310]The ultimate slow drawing-- Like this.
- [01:37:43.791]Yeah, I'm very pragmatic, I guess.
- [01:37:46.920]I did my best, because sometimes slow tools
- [01:37:49.710]make you think more.
- [01:37:51.636]That's what's so nice about a curriculum is that
- [01:37:56.510]you can say that "Okay, in first year, we're gonna do this."
- [01:38:00.520]But they're not doing that for the entire curriculum.
- [01:38:03.820]I think that would be deadly, it's too narrow.
- [01:38:07.730]You want to give them a range.
- [01:38:11.662]I think so maybe in this studio
- [01:38:13.604]you're concentrating on this.
- [01:38:15.465]On another studio, the emphasis is another, there shouldn't
- [01:38:19.020]be a repeat of what you just did before but there should
- [01:38:22.210]be greater complexity at each level.
- [01:38:28.810]Until you can make an argument and they really did.
- [01:38:33.150]At that and even quick.
- [01:38:36.870]Then our students are horrible.
- [01:38:39.570]Bring this back to the thing here.
- [01:38:43.380]I found it used to be that, like when I was in school
- [01:38:46.530]in the ancient, ancient days, years before death.
- [01:38:53.000]Year older than you in school.
- [01:38:56.150]Studios can move that way from one to the next and a
- [01:38:59.385]professor would hand out (mumbles) to the next group of
- [01:39:01.993]students, next group of students, next group of students
- [01:39:04.574]and the studios were this rhythm of these studios, but now
- [01:39:07.593]what we have is we have studios like that one that are
- [01:39:12.010]not that nice but, no offense (mumbles).
- [01:39:15.394](laughing)
- [01:39:20.814](mumbles) like "Oh no," I'm like badmouthing my own school.
- [01:39:25.510]You know, we used to have, it's such a radical shift
- [01:39:30.520]that you can't, and then when do you pick after that
- [01:39:34.150]to go to, (mumbles) design to projects, you do like a bank
- [01:39:38.990]or whatever, you're like "Oh, now we're gonna use
- [01:39:41.854]"complex site," oh, it's an Ermin site, oh, okay.
- [01:39:44.493]And then all of a sudden, and we're working on a grocery
- [01:39:46.760]store in a small town in Sutton, Nebraska.
- [01:39:49.200]But then let's go back to the other side of what we're dong.
- [01:39:50.840]So it doesn't have that, because there's
- [01:39:52.960]different kinds of studios and there's a 100 different
- [01:39:57.540]models, so in some studios, every person has their
- [01:40:00.540]own project, in some studios we're all working on a project
- [01:40:02.450]together, much more common now than it used to be.
- [01:40:07.342]It used to be only (mumbles) did it.
- [01:40:09.420]Now it's everybody.
- [01:40:13.050]I keep coming back to this, I'm interested in hearing,
- [01:40:17.990]I'd like to know more about this.
- [01:40:21.120]We're doing a cleanse right now of the outreach world
- [01:40:26.890]and trying to pull back in and trying to make and
- [01:40:29.150]reinforce that so we don't become (mumbles), one of the
- [01:40:31.230]questions you said was "How do we not become either a
- [01:40:34.487]"service in unit four communities or a theater for
- [01:40:40.847]"job training or Oscar Wilde," like off in the corner,
- [01:40:50.550]just aestheticism and we're not even gonna pay attention
- [01:40:52.630]to the profession any more.
- [01:40:55.170]We're RTM.
- [01:40:57.641]UIC.
- [01:40:58.941](laughing)
- [01:41:01.300]Sorry.
- [01:41:04.817](mumbles)
- [01:41:10.820]I find that project based studios, where the project is this
- [01:41:14.600]kind of project, it's really hard to carry on with it.
- [01:41:18.220]It's really hard to keep moving.
- [01:41:20.430]It seems like there are wonderful moments,
- [01:41:22.240]but then how do you turn that moment
- [01:41:24.280]into continuum, where this is a really
- [01:41:28.210]valuable thing, what if another client
- [01:41:30.903]like that doesn't show up?
- [01:41:32.400]Yeah, that's a good point.
- [01:41:33.940]So Jason's model for design build is actually based on
- [01:41:37.970]a particular research agenda in mass temper construction,
- [01:41:42.030]so all of his work is about that and he's got, in that case,
- [01:41:47.050]there were two ACSA papers who were co-written by him
- [01:41:49.970]and students and so it's an agenda, but I guess the issue
- [01:41:53.990]is he had a great year, 300,000 dollars in grant money
- [01:41:58.720]and construction and also just stuff happening and what if
- [01:42:03.465]he doesn't find the client, and he also completely broke
- [01:42:09.680]himself probably getting it done, I'd imagine.
- [01:42:13.120]Well, I'd hope that Jason will be able to adapt.
- [01:42:17.360]Yeah, well I mean, he's full,
- [01:42:18.850]he's not even collapsed yet.
- [01:42:20.452](laughing)
- [01:42:22.489]He's teaching at Taliesin in the summer, so.
- [01:42:23.790]Right. Wow.
- [01:42:26.390]Oh, is he?
- [01:42:27.816]Yeah, he's in Wisconsin.
- [01:42:29.310]But yeah, I think the issue with these design built projects
- [01:42:33.830]is that they're episodic and great projects, but then is the
- [01:42:39.730]next one gonna be good or how long it will be 'til there is
- [01:42:43.552]another good one?
- [01:42:45.752]And what happens to Jason that I don't know
- [01:42:46.810]basically, what happens to somebody like Jason who never,
- [01:42:48.800]COT becomes commonplace? Yeah.
- [01:42:51.050]Well, I'm sure it'll evolve, I mean, that not likely
- [01:42:54.640]a static thing, but yeah, I think that's a challenge.
- [01:42:57.200]That's one of the things I've come and
- [01:42:58.560]talked to him about is-- That have evolved.
- [01:43:00.185]Yeah.
- [01:43:03.262]It's just, it's one of the weird things
- [01:43:04.561]about tools and scholarship focus.
- [01:43:06.942]Yeah.
- [01:43:07.775]Which I mean, I never went there.
- [01:43:09.860]At one point I thought I was gonna be called out
- [01:43:11.780]digital fabrication.
- [01:43:13.020]No, see, that's a clincher.
- [01:43:14.514]Yeah.
- [01:43:16.458]You become the expert of a narrow field and then suddenly
- [01:43:19.030]everyone does that thing, you're not innovating anymore.
- [01:43:26.717]Just what concerns me is the program,
- [01:43:27.550]and then as I'm trying to produce graduates
- [01:43:31.100]who go out into the profession,
- [01:43:33.350]like these two guys right here did a very wonderful
- [01:43:36.210](mumbles) projects (mumbles) school, if the students
- [01:43:40.600]who are currently in my third year at our program at SCSU
- [01:43:43.840]don't do the design and go program, am I creating some sense
- [01:43:50.430]of a "Hey, where's my consistent product?"
- [01:43:52.837]And people go "Oh, people from that school do these
- [01:43:55.617]"kinds of things," and I'm not Yale.
- [01:43:57.790]Yeah.
- [01:43:59.266]We're not--
- [01:44:00.099]Well, I think the notion of a specializing school
- [01:44:02.850]is a really interesting problem because Thom Mayne
- [01:44:07.530]of Morphosis was here, founder of SCIAR, one of the founders
- [01:44:11.710]of SCIAR, and that was here for a lecture many years ago
- [01:44:16.040]and he said that he feels that schools should all specialize
- [01:44:20.810]so that when he needs to hire a bin person, he goes to
- [01:44:24.400]school A and when he wants to hire a designer, he goes
- [01:44:26.950]to school B because it's just from a, even someone
- [01:44:32.250]like Thom Mayne, from the point of view of running a firm,
- [01:44:34.830]he just wants to fill gaps in his office and he doesn't
- [01:44:37.630]wanna have to deal with all these generalists.
- [01:44:42.750]Which is sort of interesting, that someone like him
- [01:44:46.267]would say that.
- [01:44:52.690]So does anyone else have any burning questions?
- [01:44:55.230]We're kind of running towards the end of our time.
- [01:45:00.290](mumbles) work.
- [01:45:07.120]Ethan, take Brian down on the schedule (mumbles).
- [01:45:09.106]I think Adam has--
- [01:45:10.146]I think there's a self criticism
- [01:45:11.240]of our profession, and I'm not old by any means,
- [01:45:17.700]but not young, but I think one of the, as a self-criticism
- [01:45:24.017]of our profession, I went to school where learning how to
- [01:45:29.490]learn was instilled and practice was all about learning
- [01:45:36.536]and I think what we lost is the sense of teaching
- [01:45:43.210]our staff, no matter who they are, and I think that's
- [01:45:47.040]kind of lost in our general way of practicing 'cause
- [01:45:52.320]speed is expedient.
- [01:45:55.873]Take Thom Maynes, we go and we find the gap, those that
- [01:46:00.230]are from the gap and we've lost this sense of
- [01:46:02.620]teaching through practice and I think that's gonna be
- [01:46:10.250]self-defeating in the end, 'cause we're not gonna know
- [01:46:14.070]how to do anything pretty soon.
- [01:46:16.560]We're gonna be so generalist that we're gonna rely
- [01:46:19.880]on others that are actually able to fill those gaps
- [01:46:23.640]faster and more efficiently, so I'm just kinda curious.
- [01:46:29.590]A lot of academics in one profession,
- [01:46:33.500]happens to be the minority.
- [01:46:36.890](mumbles), when we were at school, we were
- [01:46:39.190]taught how to teach ourselves, and now that's
- [01:46:42.920]not being taught, is that what you're saying?
- [01:46:44.510]Not only that but I think, and maybe this
- [01:46:47.880]is critical of our larger big firm, is that we're not
- [01:46:51.390]taking the time to teach.
- [01:46:55.400]And maybe that's what is the danger in our practice
- [01:47:00.731]is that we're not teaching.
- [01:47:04.250]Gone through all these, with you on hiring and stuff like
- [01:47:07.323]that and we're kind of focused on (mumbles) interaction
- [01:47:09.820]with you, a specific thing, but wait a minute, maybe
- [01:47:12.400]we should be teaching them how to do that specific thing
- [01:47:16.490]within our office rather than going out and looking for that
- [01:47:20.670]specific person that's commissioned
- [01:47:22.340]to do this specific thing.
- [01:47:25.380]So that we're taking on students and we allow students to be
- [01:47:30.260]thinkers, allow students to be willing to learn,
- [01:47:34.710]engage learning, to be more relevant in how spacial
- [01:47:38.780]organization is actually, we're gonna go back to the canon,
- [01:47:42.703]'cause I think the danger, and this is the end part model
- [01:47:46.900]of trying to get people faster at getting their license
- [01:47:50.680]because, so what it takes you 12 years to (mumbles) a team?
- [01:47:54.830]I mean, who cares?
- [01:47:57.050]So I think we need to kind of take a step back and figure
- [01:48:00.500]out what is our relevance, what is our language, because
- [01:48:10.020]the canon and everything with which you're speaking,
- [01:48:12.830]when you're talking about the relevance of a language,
- [01:48:15.960]that's kind of lost on a lot of people and just for that
- [01:48:20.628]expediency of producing people that are just gonna do
- [01:48:23.890]a specific thing. Yeah.
- [01:48:25.620]I mean, I think that basically we go to university
- [01:48:29.930]to learn how to learn, regardless of what, it doesn't matter
- [01:48:33.830]what discipline, we go to, we learn how to learn.
- [01:48:36.867]And architecture teaches students I think how to learn
- [01:48:41.893]in a very beautiful way, I think.
- [01:48:45.360]That is relevant to our society.
- [01:48:49.110]Especially with our younger generation being more and more
- [01:48:51.980]visual, I think there's a danger in becoming like a
- [01:48:57.770]trade school, like comparable to a trade school, okay?
- [01:49:03.095]We go there, that model, I think basically many people,
- [01:49:08.830]most schools recognize that that model does not work.
- [01:49:13.940]I think that even SIARC is transforming in such an
- [01:49:17.560]interesting way, because it was, you kind of hired a SIARC
- [01:49:25.270]student if you wanted to do parametrics at one point.
- [01:49:29.830]But I think that they are producing some pretty amazing
- [01:49:34.750]students that are being hired.
- [01:49:36.720]It's really funny, I remember Michael Speaks who was the
- [01:49:41.130]dean and I remember being at this dean's con I attended,
- [01:49:45.210]it was a conference at UIC and you had all these new deans
- [01:49:49.200]so it was like Michael Speaks, Mónica Ponce de León
- [01:49:52.190]and Sarah Whiting and so on, and there was a debate between
- [01:49:56.700]Mónica Ponce de León and Michael Speaks and Michael Speaks
- [01:50:00.490]was saying that, Monica says "Oh, my office will hire
- [01:50:06.267]"SIARC students because I wanna parametric guy"
- [01:50:10.494]and Michael Speaks took a position against that, that we
- [01:50:12.970]shouldn't be adopting that model and in fact he was
- [01:50:15.880]looking to the Europeans, so TU Delft, more synthetic model,
- [01:50:22.800]but not it's really interesting to me because I think that
- [01:50:25.170]the SIARC people are doing, they're also transforming.
- [01:50:28.890]They're not just known for parametrics, but they're really
- [01:50:31.460]great at the tools.
- [01:50:33.270]And now Michael Speaks I mean, so many of his new faculty
- [01:50:36.630]are SIARC graduates, so yeah.
- [01:50:43.430]I mean, the landscape is changing.
- [01:50:47.738]So I think that the idea that you brought up
- [01:50:50.100]about the notion of being reflective about what you make or
- [01:50:55.020]build or whatever is extremely important for, we're
- [01:51:04.398]training students to do certain things, but then okay,
- [01:51:06.840]so you go into practice and you make something that's like,
- [01:51:11.080]how many students are actually, how many people who go to
- [01:51:14.940]practice are actually thinking "Oh, well what does this
- [01:51:17.797]"really mean?"
- [01:51:19.290]But I also think that goes back to a culture in the city
- [01:51:23.400]of being able to sort of, how does that tie into an
- [01:51:26.740]overall culture, that State Omaha, we don't have
- [01:51:32.990]architectural purists talking about this or that building
- [01:51:39.294]that's recently been constructed and oh, being really
- [01:51:42.690]thinking about what does this really mean
- [01:51:44.440]for our global environment?
- [01:51:46.490]Whereas in New York, of course
- [01:51:49.070]that's an important component.
- [01:51:52.805]I think that level of reflection is extremely important,
- [01:51:55.050]because that also builds upon a culture of a place,
- [01:51:58.940]so I guess my question is just simply how does that
- [01:52:03.650]sort of tie into students also understanding that role?
- [01:52:10.585]That the city that they're in, whether that actually has
- [01:52:13.648]created a culture that you're starting to reflect upon
- [01:52:14.930]a place and think about what is that new structure here,
- [01:52:20.470]what is that new structure (mumbles).
- [01:52:22.180]No, I totally agree.
- [01:52:24.780]I mean, that's really important, absolutely critical.
- [01:52:29.605]I think that, I mean, that's where you start building
- [01:52:33.250]an identity I think, that's an ingredient that goes
- [01:52:36.450]into our identity.
- [01:52:42.490]I kind of mentioned it before, the city of Omaha
- [01:52:46.010]itself is, it's difficult to find clients or people that
- [01:52:52.170]understand where we're coming from and I remember one of
- [01:52:57.490]the first projects I worked on as a young architect,
- [01:53:00.384]you had the tenant build out, full tenant shop.
- [01:53:02.540]It was a retail space and it was these two ladies and they
- [01:53:08.570]were not kind to me or people I was working with but we
- [01:53:15.620]only gave them what we told them we were gonna give them.
- [01:53:20.040]We didn't tell them what we weren't gonna give them
- [01:53:23.178]that they assumed we were giving them, which was
- [01:53:25.190]mechanical, electrical services.
- [01:53:28.096]And I got yelled at for a good hour about this situation
- [01:53:33.160]and they assumed I was in and they wanted it and we
- [01:53:35.760]didn't get fee in it and they didn't wanna pay for it
- [01:53:37.047]and all of that but what I realized is that we also
- [01:53:41.420]have the responsibility to educate our clients and as you're
- [01:53:46.380]talking about that, I think we have responsibility to
- [01:53:49.310]educate our clients not just in the process of delivery
- [01:53:52.520]and contrast with what they get, but also in that,
- [01:53:56.310]to some capacity somehow, that long history
- [01:54:01.056]of the profession and I've never thought to try to,
- [01:54:06.810]it's not easy to do.
- [01:54:10.221]I've never thought to try to do that until last week
- [01:54:12.440]when I was on a, I went to the course lab to look at
- [01:54:18.290]some precaps with the client and we were looking at a
- [01:54:21.443]number of different types of panels and talking about
- [01:54:24.600]them and their design and it was like all of a sudden
- [01:54:27.341]they understood the nuances of pre-cast concrete and it's
- [01:54:30.100]like you take your client and educate them about the design
- [01:54:33.220]of something and maybe within Omaha, we need to find a way
- [01:54:37.040]to do that better across kind of globally within the city.
- [01:54:42.259]I don't know what that looks like but it's kind of
- [01:54:45.123]an interesting question to talk about the city of Omaha
- [01:54:47.430]and the responsibility of the architect.
- [01:54:53.299]Yeah, for me, there's like predesign, right?
- [01:55:02.323]But that requires basically that you, that you work with
- [01:55:06.810]others, done some collaborative, and you try to come up
- [01:55:10.840]with an idea, right?
- [01:55:14.277]And you have, it's very hard to give voice to the different
- [01:55:18.200]stakeholders and to the knowledgeable to be reflective,
- [01:55:22.780]but then there's also the post design phase.
- [01:55:26.932]So post-documents and I guess.
- [01:55:30.763]To see how successful that project and I think that most,
- [01:55:35.892]design is really amazing because when it works,
- [01:55:40.360]it's like wow, that's a good design.
- [01:55:42.680]People can understand, my mother can understand
- [01:55:45.540]a good design because it's working
- [01:55:49.370]on so many different levels.
- [01:55:53.383]And then the project basically, I'm just saying that I think
- [01:55:56.900]that that's a really good thing, that we don't have to
- [01:56:00.300]educate someone, like art is a harder sell, right?
- [01:56:05.682](laughing)
- [01:56:07.842]We have to educate that abstract expressionism, which isn't
- [01:56:12.951]something my two year old can do, right?
- [01:56:17.066](mumbles)
- [01:56:18.064](laughing)
- [01:56:21.200]Right?
- [01:56:22.033]Whereas I don't know, you visit a good building,
- [01:56:25.396]you just, I'm just thinking of one of my favorite
- [01:56:30.730]buildings is Louis Kahn's Kimbell Museum, and now,
- [01:56:36.972]everybody who visits "Oh, my mother loves that building."
- [01:56:41.692]My students will say "My mother loves."
- [01:56:45.111]It's like, that's good design.
- [01:56:47.015]You go in that environment and it works on so many
- [01:56:49.460]different levels and it feels like a nice space
- [01:56:54.318]on top of everything else.
- [01:56:57.649]I mean, I don't know, I was just, made me think of
- [01:57:00.440]those other things like this.
- [01:57:04.151]Well, I wanna thank everyone for coming out.
- [01:57:07.147]Thanks to the panel for their thoughts.
- [01:57:09.886](applauding)
- [01:57:18.053]Thanks to my phone for--
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