Women in the Built World Symposium: The Men's Perspective

The third annual Women in the Built World Symposium was held this past February in Chicago, and was better than ever. Among the panels were lectures on terra cotta restoration, roofing best practices, the renovations in the Old Post Office, and panels on advocacy and women in construction. One of the more encouraging panels was The Men's Perspective, a panel discussion among principals and presidents of an architecture firm, an engineering firm, and two construction firms. "But wait," you ask, "I thought this event was Women in the Built World - why do we need to hear from more men?"

What the ...: An Ongoing Series

My colleague sent this image to me out of the blue with the caption: I'M COMING FOR YOU.

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, by Zaha Hadid Architects

and all I could think was

Grenfell Tower: Building to Reap the Whirlwind

image by Chris Barker

With the global economy hurtling toward a greater and more insurmountable chasm between the rich and poor, symptoms of these societal structural inequalities will continue to occur. The deadly and terrible fire in Grenfell Tower is just one more in a chain of tragic disasters that continue to impact the most vulnerable people in disproportionate measure.

Public and affordable housing remains a hotbed of political and social strife, in no small part due to the continual implementation of disastrous policies, lack of oversight and regulation, and straight-out malevolence from the governments and landlords of these properties toward those people these projects are meant to serve. The US has more than a few particularly infamous housing projects, many of which have been vacated or demolished as unsalvageable failures.

By now there has been a great deal of press about the flammable cladding, the single stairwell for a 24 story building (completely legal per British building code and ASTONISHING to this US architect), the misinformation given to residents, the previously-aired fears of a disastrous fire, and the overall heartless deregulation to give financial advantage to landlords and disregard the health, safety, and welfare of tenants.

(And you thought this speech by Rik Mayall on "The New Statesman" was satire.)

Perhaps what is saddest and most infuriating is that this largely-preventable tragedy was not the first of its kind, and won't be the last. Remember the Ghost Ship fire - less than a year ago? This fire, in a building that was not intended to house residents but was home to dozens, killed 36 people in Oakland, California.  And like in Oakland, the survivors in London are without much hope of finding a new place to live within the city. London is suffering from its success - in a booming economy and with increased population growth, affordable housing has been sluggish to keep up, resulting in a severe gap between the median home price and median salary. These are not "market forces" at work - this is the deliberate policy of the government choosing not to invest in this desperately-needed sector. This is in stark relief to the "Billionaire's Row", a street of empty and derelict mansions worth millions of pounds. 

While there has been an outpouring of funds and donations from around the world to help alleviate this situation, this is merely a bandaid on the open wound of unjust housing. What would it mean to the UK (and the US, and the rest of the world) if the government were to adopt a Right to Housing as part of a bill of rights for all people in these nations? Not just nationalists, not just citizens, not just legal aliens, but every person would have the right to access adequate housing. How would this be defined? How would it be supplied? How is it to be believed that some of the wealthiest nations on the face of the earth are unable to afford the basic sheltering of their people?

Perhaps I am being hypocritical. I'm an architect that designs in the luxury residential market - highly specialized and profitable, and for the most part ignores the need for affordable housing by building single family residences on oversized lots in the wealthy suburbs and rural landscapes. Then again, the city of Chicago where I practice has an Affordable Requirements Ordinance which demands that residential developers building in the city provide either affordable units within the project itself, or build affordable housing elsewhere in the city. This does not apply to every project, but it does apply to a substantial number of them, one of mine included. While this does not address a right to housing, it does help to ensure that affordable housing exists in the marketplace and is available for those who need it. It's a small step in the right direction.

What the...: An Ongoing Series

A cheeky comment from a GC:

GINGERLY.

What The... : An Ongoing Series

WHY DO YOU WANT THREE TELEVISIONS IN YOUR LIVING ROOM. I DIDN'T DESIGN A BUFFALO WILD WINGS FOR YOU, FFS.

What the...: An Ongoing Series

"That detail that you're worried about now that the client has changed their mind for the 19th time on this item? I've been told we're no longer supposed to care."

Dear Friends:

Your architect wants to make sure you're happy and that all the parts and pieces of the project are thought through and coordinated. Please don't abuse your architect working on your house to the point where he or she might say this out loud.

Best,
The Architectrix

Drawing: a powerful tool

I've recently been making an effort to carve out time in my schedule for a daily drawing. I don't have any rules about what the drawing is or how much time I spend on it, just that I get at least one done per day. Often I will bring my sketchbook with me to lunch or on the train, and occasionally I'll get curious looks or a comment from some passerby.

Almost every comment I get is some variant of "Wow, I could never do that."

Last year I attended a lecture/workshop that examined the intersection of architecture and comics, and part of the workshop was a sheet of comic panels to fill in. Some of the panels even had some unfinished linework to get people started. There were many who dove right in to the drawings, but at my table a few people refused to even pick up the pencil. Why?

What is so fearsome about drawing that some people won't even touch the tools?

Architecture vs Shootings: An Impossible Fight

First, I want to express my rage and grief at the mass murder in Orlando on Sunday. This was the act of a man propelled by hate and bigotry against people who have been systematically abused and made vulnerable by the lawmakers in this country. It is obscene for public officials to bleat on about "thoughts and prayers" and in the same breath condemn the queer and POC communities to yet more discrimination. I fear there is no end in sight for these events, and that our country and government will continue to abandon our families, our neighbors, our colleagues, and our friends to men with guns.

There simply isn't enough time or space to list every mass shooting in the US in this blog; we don't even have a confirmed record of the mass shootings in this country. The best we have is the National Violent Death Reporting System, which is a state-based program under the CDC and includes only 32 states. And the House recently vetoed a proposed amendment to allow the CDC to research gun deaths.

But we need to start somewhere. If we use the definition of "four or more people are wounded or killed", there have been more mass shootings in the US this year than days passed of 2016. Let me repeat that.

There have been more mass shootings in the United States this year than we've had days in 2016.

Territorial Insecurity, a Lecture at the AIC by Felicity Scott

Or, ARCHITECTURE IN SPAAAAAAAAACE.

I recently had the pleasure of attending a lecture at the Art Institute of Chicago called "Territorial Insecurity," given by Felicity Scott of Columbia University. A description of Scott's work and a precis of her lecture can be found at the AIC website.

Scott has two books coming out this year: one a compilation of past essays, and another called Outlaw Territories: Environments of Insecurity/Architecture of Counterinsurgency, the closing remarks of which was the starting point of her lecture at the AIC.

Outlaw Territories, available at MIT Press in 2016

Brief Ode to the Death of a Quirky Masterpiece

Hat tip to the Chicago Architecture Blog for this time-lapse gif of Prentice being demolished.

(Photos in gif from Dr. Robert L Vogelzang, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine)

Better Late Than Never, I Guess: The AIA Gold Medal Award

The AIA Gold Medal, the highest award of the American Institute of Architects, has been awarded posthumously to Julia Morgan for 2014.

Morgan is the first woman architect to receive this award from the AIA - an award that has been in existence since 1907.  It's taken 107 years for the AIA to award the Gold Medal to a woman architect.  Let me repeat that:  it's taken 107 years for the AIA to award the Gold Medal to a woman architect.

Community and Diversity: A Dialogue

In response to this article at Atlantic Cities called "The Paradox of Diverse Communities", my fellow editor-architect onymously and I had a discussion/hashing out of ideas/questioning session via email that I think really helps illustrate the architect's lens of seeing the world.