The final day of Surface Conversations was concluded with panels featuring distinguished architectural academics and practitioners.  Participants for the first panel included:

TF: Tony Fry, Professor and convener of Design Futures Program, Queensland College of Art; author of many books including Design as Politics

TM: Thom Mayne, FAIA, founder of morphosis; designed UC’s Campus Recreation Center

ES: Erik Sueberkrop, FAIA, founding principal of STUDIOS Architecture, UC alumnus; designed UC’s CARE/Crawley Building

JW: Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA, principal and co-founder of Leers Weinzapfel Associates; designed UC’s University Pavilion

BY: Buzz Yudell, FAIA, founding principal Moore Ruble Yudell; designed UC’s Steger Student Life Center

Reflections/Forecasts: Panel Two

(questions from moderators are paraphrased; answers are not a complete summary, but rather a sampling of some key ideas and discussions)

Discuss urbanism within the Occupy movement.

TF: Fun fact: Australia is the most urbanized continent.  Is occupy a movement or just similar to past protests?

ES: Opportunity to analyze the design of urban environment – creates opportunities to gather/unify, start dialogue.

JW: Occupy goes beyond emotional fervor, it is about the issues.

BY: Brings into consideration the privatization of space.

Pruitt Igoe

TM: Overemphasis of architecture in Pruitt Igoe – no commitment to the poor.  It’s possible to change behavior, but not at the scale of modernism.

ES: Economic equalizer of a downtown stadium.  Design for reuse with an eye to community involvement – adaptable.

Campus architecture

TM: Restructure how we see ourselves as architects.

ES: Harnessing the strength of universities is a great resource to architects building on campus.

JW: Higher education looking forward to architecture.

TM: Architecture is active not passive – like soccer, not football.  Pluralistic culture of campuses – completely different practices of morphosis and Moore Rubel Yudell can work together to create connective tissue on campus.

TF: Begin to make campus part of the community.

Research interests if money was not an issue

TF: Design school with indigenous people, who are typically denigrated or romanticized.

TM: Continue his work in three realms: own practice; own unconstructed work – free not restricted; and strategic partnership with UCLA – urban, economic, policy, and social research.  Ranges from abstract and interpretive to practical.

ES: Read history, learn about Native American material culture – their sense of environment.

JW: Integration of infrastructure and landscape.  Research and design in the desert – delicate environment, come to grips with home environment, being from Arizona herself.  Develop design leadership in a collaborative setting.

BY: Would like to engage in more research related to the work he’s doing.  Lessons from vernacular architecture – community, environmental craft.  Take studies and sketches and analyze and redraw them; would like to sketch and paint while traveling.

Endnote by Michael Graves

Architecture is not good or bad, new or old – it’s just architecture.  Look toward next research and the next building.  Architecture marsh – plan drawing with hierarchy, surface as it’s connected to section.