Kevin Hirth is a Clinical Assistant Professor at University of Colorado Denver's College of Architecture and Planning. He holds a Master's of Architecture with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (2011) and a Bachelor's of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia. Last year, Kevin was awarded the 2017 Young Architects + Designers Prize from The Architectural League of New York.
As part of Archinect's Small Studio Snapshot series, I met up with Kevin in Denver to talk about his teaching and his work; the importance of licensure; the challenges of working alone; and his experience with the Architectural League.
How did you start your practice?
I took on some research projects in graduate school that were prompts that ended up leading into my own practice down the road. Knowing I would have to work for some other people, it has always been a driving concern of mine too, moving my own practice forward, figure out what kind of work am I trying to put into the world. That started way before teaching. To be honest, I didn't know how much I would enjoy teaching until I started as a teaching assistant—a couple of my professors mentored me, showed me what that meant and how powerful it could be. Beyond, teaching allows me, as a one-man practice, to really ramp up a research project for six months and take time to find the right project and client.
How do you blend your teaching and research with your personal practice?
For me, they are all tightly linked together so the research I do both comes out of practice and informs what is happening in practice. Teaching, then, is the thing that stitches it all together in a lot of ways. With a studio project, I will try to tie it into what I am seeing happening in practice, but bringing in a strong conceptual or research bias. It really is one thing feeding the next and 'round and around' they go. Sometimes it gets blurry what is what—which is exciting because what is being talked about in each environment touches on the same topics of interest.
Let's talk about the projects that were part of the Young Architect's Prize award. Do any of them remain active, ongoing projects with clients?
I have active clients but not for those projects. A couple of them were really prompts from friends of mine who have the ambition to someday, maybe build this thing. In other cases, the projects just didn't materialize and that is just the reality of practice—you’re making mistakes, finding the right path, allowing yourself to not necessarily do things that are realistic. I do have projects that have been built or are in the works though their presence is minor in my portfolio. These projects are more about building for the sake of building; they don't have the impact of other things I am working on now.
I am not in a rush to do things as fast as possible which I think runs a little bit counter to our perception of what a small business endeavor should be.
I emailed with one of my favorite professors maybe a year or two ago—Mack Scogin who teaches at GSD—and told him what I am up to. He emailed me back saying "there's no rush...take your time."It was a simple word of advice that has made a big impact on how I thought about the practice and about the work. I am not in a rush to do things as fast as possible which I think runs a little bit counter to our perception of what a small business endeavor should be. You are trying to get things going as quickly as possible, so you can go to the next step, and the next step and the next step. For me, I don't really want to think that way. All the time and work I have put into getting where I am is allowing me the perspective to reflect on being young, probably too young, and having the ability to work on projects which are purely theoretical and building a body of work. Of course, I am not making any money on my practice; routinely, making zero money.
Do you want to scale up?
No, no, no. The office's name is a very direct statement. I don't have an idea of becoming something more than what it is—an extension of who I am.
Do you have a group of collaborators that you work with on an ad hoc basis? Or is it really just your research and agenda?
This summer, I worked for a while on a project with a close friend and colleague, Paul Anderson. His office is also located in downtown Denver and we have worked on a bunch of stuff together. Finding teams and collaborators is key and has been central to every project I have worked on recently. T+E+A+M is a really great example of how you can bring people together. For me, seeking that out, is more about each project, happening organically as needed.
So did you complete IDP, pursue licensure?
I am not licensed. I haven't worked on any projects that have required it yet. But, I do believe in licensure and it's sort of the thing that has fallen through the cracks. I am sure a lot of my peers can sympathize. I have finished IDP, plus plenty of hours. The amount of time it takes to get through the exam process is a huge sacrifice to your schedule. There is a choice I had to make at one point: to start as a lecturer at CU, or spend a year and a half getting a license. Now, I am realizing that I probably should have done both—I am scrambling.
Can you talk a bit about the design culture of Colorado?
I think there has been a lot of great work in Colorado, all the way back to 70s and 80s. For me, the rapid growth of Denver has forced a lot of design issues onto the city’s architects and planners—i.e. to figure out what is the long-term appearance of the city. It is an exaggerated version of what is happening all over the country, a kind of "urban lab."
Colorado has, in general, access to a certain kind of monumentality in the landscape.
Colorado has, in general, access to a certain kind of monumentality in the landscape. It is something we don't see our community engaging with enough—the idea of the monumental, magnanimousness of the landscape. I think the buildings we cherish are the ones that address that monumentality head-on like the Air Force Academy Chapel, I.M. Pei's NCAR campus, Philip Johnson's Wells Fargo Tower. Very frontally engaging the mountains in all three cases. You see that in the infrastructure around the state too. In my own work, I am trying to understand: how do you put something against that backdrop, a scale that dwarfs anything you will ever do.
What are the downsides to running a small practice? The challenges?
The biggest hurdle is isolation in terms of a dialogue around what I am trying to do—e.g. being in a room, working on something for months on end. Second guessing can be difficult when it is you alone; the shadow in the room is self-doubt, whether you are remaining authentic to what you really are. My best advice for how to work through that, beyond engaging with all your friends and everything like that, is that I keep tabs on myself daily to look at what I am doing and across my body of work to try and figure out how it all fits together.
If I am working on something, I may go off on a wild tangent but at the end, forcing myself to try and assess whether it advances my own interest in materials, tectonics, monumentality etc.—all the different projects I am trying to explore. With a partner, I think it would be a little bit easier to keep each other in check.
What was the process like for the Young Architects Prize? Your thoughts, reaction, what it means to you?
The process of applying for the award was hugely instructive. I would continue to do it again next year if I could, just because being forced to put your work into a different context, lens, etc. actually gave me a lot of clarity in terms of what I am trying to do. This goes back to what I was talking about earlier—being alone in your backroom feeling crazy. Going through the process of putting everything out there, I took a month from everything else I was doing basically and just sort of sat down and thought: how does this all fit together? When you are young and starting out, it can be hard to see that sometimes. Doing it a few times gives you the ability to go back and think how does this actually fit just by putting the application together.
It takes time, I’m the first person to say. I applied for it three times and didn't get it the first two. I go back and look at my first submission—it restarted some of the things I was working on because I thought: wait a minute, I am way outside of where I want to be. Just applying was absolutely rewarding in it's own way.
An ex-liberal arts student now in healthcare informatics, I am a friend of architects and lover of design. My interests include: learning/teaching, religion(s), sustainable ecologics/ies, technology and urban(isms). I was raised in NYC, but after almost two decades of living in North Florida I ...
15 Comments
There's a lot of honesty in this, something that our profession sorely lacks.
Nice work and very good interview.
I wish I could understand this kind of work as architecture, but I'm having a hard time doing so. That doesn't mean it's not valuable, but not in the working world. Architecture has always vacillated between the ideal and the real, art and science, pick your metaphor. This work seems like pure art, something you'd hang up but never build. Nice to look at in one's imagination but not necessarily in reality. Aren't we selling students short when they think they're learning to be architects and instead are better prepared to be polemical theorists or graphic artists? Again, I'm not trying to prioritize one or the other or set off some stupid culture war, but shouldn't we acknowledge the reality of building on some level?
Are you implying this work cannot be built? These projects still seem firmly rooted in reality, while also illustrating some higher-level thinking. I’d rather learn from an ambitious architect striving to move the discipline forward, than an architect who is a slave to the way things have always been done. Please explain how this is "pure art" and something "you'd hang up but never build," because I don't see it. It looks like architecture to me.
Agreed. Excepting VARIATIONS OF VARIATIONS and MONUMENT TO DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN COLORADO, all the images shown here seem like pretty straightforward buildings.
Anything can be built, it just looks like an afterthought in these designs, attractive as they might be. Take the mother in law's house, who's going to want to live there? Or the roof clouds of Campground. Is that just a plastic covering in the forest?
I just wanted to add that I appreciate being able to have a civil discussion about these differences, something that you simply can't do in most schools unless you like being ostracized. Igor Stravinsky once 'moved the (music) discipline forward', yet people still loved the neo-missisippi blues (etc) of the Beatles. I wish this young man great success and to all the others who strive to 'move the discipline forward'. I just feel bad for so many young architects disolussioned that someone will still have to pay for these designs and that your personal explorations aren't first on their list. The great cities of the world are filled with forward and backward lookind buildings. The thing is most people just don't care. What they seem to care about mostly is beautiful compositions, regardless of style, not polemics.
The evolution of a fruit fly happens a lot faster than that of an elephant. A handful of generations per century vs hundreds of thousands. Sam principle can be applied to architecture. Real buildings are very slow. Too slow to become a good designer doing “real buildings” alone. Paper architecture allows for those many generations required to evolve as a designer.
Congrats Kevin from your old Theory TA!
Born on the pragmatic prairies of Canada I totally get the worry that something is not real enough. But with all respect to those who live for the details of a real building, this award is about ideas first. It's for someone who shows some evidence of working to position architecture in a new way. There are lots of awards for buildings. Lets not begrudge a prize for even this slight extension to what is common.
The work is awesome. Well done.
The legal issues about architect vs architecture is fraught with pits and spikes. Personally, I take heart that a non licensed architect can win this prize. If the interview is any indication it will be moot as a point soon enough in any case...
will, your point is well taken. The award is about ideas first so, congratulations. I was speaking more of academia in general, but I wish this young man the best. To those who love building , there's a great amount of creativity dealing with real programs and patrons. Please don't let them tell you that the world is divided into ideas or reality and the twain shall never meet. The question for me has always been how best to bring those wonderful ideas into the built world, but in this case and many others, there's nothing wrong with pure ideas. Congrats again.
Some of the works looks like they could not be built and last more than five minutes and others look like they could be constructed, but none of it looks like something you would want to build.
Some architects have unbuilt designs that leave the viewer saying "when I win the lottery that puppy is going UP"
At the beginning of this article there was a feeling that (during the read) I found myself thinking about my own career. If you’re just starting out - there are more unknowns than you will likely consider, and these unknowns come packaged in several area’s of the business. If you’re in the right profession you’ll likely understand the level of risk and won’t get into trouble. The only true difficulty when starting an architectural design practice before licensure is working with your clients unpredictable behaviors. From my background allot of the leverage one may gain in the client relationship comes from one’s personal knowledge in the support of your presentation work to your client when bridging the costs of an artistic expression in your presentation. These are things you cannot learn in books, and you must learn them through the application of doing.
"Variations of Variations" is a new written language - so cool the way the shadows are incorporated into the letters. To do: write a novel using this language. It will be bigger than "Finnegan's Wake"
USA architecture graduate schools must create a degree called "Philosopher of Architecture"-POA - (not PhD in architectuire !) - a program focusing on deep thinking - a sort of Quantum Physics / String Theory for architecture that would spawn and support a global cohort of architecture philosophers who never get near tangible material (or need for licensure) just as quantum physicists never get near anything that is ever able to be sensed.
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