[Clockwise] Max Kuo, Alex Chew, and Danielle Wagner. Image courtesy of ALLTHATISSOLID

Running a practice, in general, is no easy task, however as the onslaught that is 2020 continues, it's been made clear that studios and firms will continue to be challenged in unforeseen ways. Although the events that have taken place this year have prompted many re-evaluations within the industry, practices like ALLTHATISSOLID are using this abundance of obstacles to pause, reassess, and persevere.

The Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur-based architecture practice consists of architects Max Kuo, Alex Chew, and Danielle Wagner. When the trio met as students in UCLA's Architecture and Urban Design M.Arch program, their bond over architecture, influential female figures, and creating a practice that "designs at many scales" helped establish the ethos of their studio. Starting their practice during the 2008 recession, they share their thoughts on the pandemic and the future of the industry.

For this week's Studio Snapshot, Archinect connected with Kuo, Chew, and Wagner to discuss their studio's growth over time, running a practice based in two different countries, and what a recession can bring out of a group fueled by passion. "The only disciplinary consistency that sustained us was moonlighting on competitions, independent projects, and the conversations between us [...] if full-time jobs are difficult to come by, your optimism, youthful energy, and peers are invaluable resources that shouldn't be overlooked!"

How many people are in your practice?

Including the three partners, we are currently a studio of five people. We were a total of ten, but just prior to the global pandemic we downsized to refocus the creative work of the studio.

How did you all meet and what prompted you to start your own practice?

We all met as M. Arch cohorts during our time at UCLA. The running joke is that we were the heaviest smokers of our class and our collaboration grew naturally out of delirious conversations about architecture and whatever else during 2 A.M. smoke breaks. That, and we were all raised by strong mothers. Strong maternal influence results in trustworthy and reliable people. At UCLA, instead of a thesis project, our capstone was a research studio heavily directed by the professor. During that semester, a friend asked us to design a streetwear and sneaker boutique in Chinatown, Los Angeles, and that design-build project functioned like a thesis project allowing us to explore our ideas independently. The construction ran through the summer and we picked up another installation project in the neighborhood. We rented out a cheap loft office in the client’s retail space. 

We graduated in 2008 and the global recession had decimated the architecture industry [...] Because of this experience, we are very sympathetic to the current graduating architecture students who are entering the marketplace amid another crisis.

We graduated in 2008 and the global recession had decimated the architecture industry. We gigged at a lot of offices during the next several years. The only disciplinary consistency that sustained us was moonlighting on competitions, independent projects, and the conversations between us. Because of this experience, we are very sympathetic to the current graduating architecture students who are entering the marketplace amid another crisis. If full-time jobs are difficult to come by, your optimism, youthful energy, and peers are invaluable resources that shouldn’t be overlooked! So while we have been working together since school, we didn’t incorporate our studio until 2012. Ironically, Alex had moved back to Kuala Lumpur, Max was teaching in Seoul, while Danielle maintained the fort in Los Angeles. We’ve been working remotely ever since. 

ALLTHATISSOLID derives from Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto made famous by the title of Marshall Berman’s book All That is Solid Melts into Air. The names of so many independent architecture firms of the early naughts felt very “techy.”

How did you come up with your studio’s name?

ALLTHATISSOLID derives from Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto made famous by the title of Marshall Berman’s book All That is Solid Melts into Air. The names of so many independent architecture firms of the early naughts felt very “techy.” Those were the digital architecture days. Ideology aside, we liked that ALLTHATISSOLID felt less denominational, could sound like a rock band, and implied design at many scales (industrial, furniture, environments, interior, architecture, and urbanism). But more importantly, we believe in situating architectural design within a larger historical context—the name implies the second half of the phrase “...melts into air,” a phase change produced by the techno-cultural forces of modernization. These themes never leave us. Max is currently working on an essay that makes use of Zygmunt Bauman’s description of liquid modernity as today’s late modern period of cultural ambivalence and constant upheaval. Using Bauman’s theoretical figure of the “stranger,” the essay unpacks how digital networks have made everyday banal routines and objects so unfamiliar and weird.  

What are the benefits of having your own practice? Is scaling up a goal?

With our first project, Lions Den, it was a privilege to lead with design concepts, work with an adventurous client, and explore our own creative inclinations. Having our own practice allows us to pursue the projects and clients we prefer, while tending to the meta-project that emerges from the unique parameters of each commission. But we don’t want to give the wrong impression, sustaining your own practice is very difficult. Our partnership is complex and involves different roles: Alex works with a steady stream of hospitality and retail clients, Danielle oversees many residential renovations, and Max has been teaching at Harvard GSD for many years. When the right project opportunity arises, we closely collaborate on the early phases of design. We have also started developing our own projects to maintain design control and to recapture revenues down the line. We are very excited for Corner House, a multi-unit residential project just next to the Silverlake reservoir in Los Angeles that we will be submitting to the city later this year.

...cultivating a sustainable culture of shared values with our clients and contractors is a prerequisite to scaling up. 

Recently, we’ve decided to downscale the Kuala Lumpur office so that we don’t perpetuate a cycle of taking on unrewarding projects just to make payroll. We are stepping back to be more strategic. In Asia, growth can be non-linear: large scale project opportunities can appear without warning. But the mandates and scheduling of many of these projects are not conducive to making good architecture. Ultimately, cultivating a sustainable culture of shared values with our clients and contractors is a prerequisite to scaling up. 

Your studio has an office in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles. Did the transition to remote working come easier?

The most difficult challenge has been what all working parents have gone through: the collision of childcare and working from home [...] Hopefully the pandemic has changed the paradigm so that we are much more willing to acknowledge the labor and care that’s necessary for the well-being of working families.

Communication between partners has not changed much. We’ve been aware of the difficulties of remote working for many years. We have never idealized the “distributed practice” nor the “flexibility” of a networked office. No virtual platform or software replaces the convenience and feedback of impromptu discussion, sketching, or other in-person forms of communication. In general, studio culture is the most difficult to replicate in a remote environment. In the KL office, the team has been working from home and “office” hours are more flexible given the unique circumstances of each team member. We’ve done our best to maintain project responsibilities and deadlines while understanding that planning is much more contingent and susceptible to change. The most difficult challenge has been what all working parents have gone through: the collision of childcare and working from home. Our digitally connected lives have been eroding our life/work boundaries for a long time now. Hopefully the pandemic has changed the paradigm so that we are much more willing to acknowledge the labor and care that’s necessary for the well-being of working families.

What challenges have you faced during the past three months?

A whole new repertoire of design acts open up when we think about architecture from the standpoint of socio-physical issues of safety, belonging, and comfort. Obviously these are the first principles of shelter, but when re-situated within our modern context of urbanization, work, travel, and digital technologies, novel forms emerge. Our immunological bubbles are deeply circumstantial. In post-pandemic life, it’s more obvious how we’ve contrived our patterns of family, life, and work. By denaturalizing these social orders, it becomes more possible for us to invent more resilient clusters of cohabitation. As architects, it’s exciting to envision progressive forms of social interaction and resettlement. Imagine immunological amoebas based on who you protest with, who you ride the bus with, whose children you educate, and whose produce you harvest, etc--non-tribal amoebas of care, affiliation, and social commitment.

In so many ways, the pandemic is a design prompt for us to collectively reconsider our spatial patterns of cohabitation.

We’ve seen a dramatic reduction of inquiries from hospitality clients, with projects being put on hold indefinitely. It’s too early to predict how COVID-19 protocols will affect the hospitality industry considering the different regions we practice in. Because of the tropical climate in KL, most commercial activities happen in air-conditioned environments. Interestingly, social distancing has forced businesses to reclaim outdoor spaces again. This is a trend towards pre-modern technologies that the design disciplines can be excited about. In so many ways, the pandemic is a design prompt for us to collectively reconsider our spatial patterns of cohabitation. We’ve seen how the wealthy are able to withdraw from their summer homes and the general affirmation of suburbanization. The events of the past three months should inspire us all to speculate on more progressive alternatives. 

This idea of starting a new studio with better versions of yourselves is very appealing. If any partnership stays together first principles need to be assessed and restated from time to time.

There have been moments when we’ve really disagreed about what our priorities were. And in those situations, we give each other space to pursue other goals and ideas.

Have your design perspectives and approaches changed or evolved?

Since we’ve been working together, there’s been deliberate reconsideration of our work every few years. The first time this happened, we thought of a funny story where Lou Reed called together his bandmates to dissolve The Velvet Underground. But in the very next breath, he declared that they would start a new band together called The Velvet Underground! This idea of starting a new studio with better versions of yourselves is very appealing. If any partnership stays together first principles need to be assessed and restated from time to time. There have been moments when we’ve really disagreed about what our priorities were. And in those situations, we give each other space to pursue other goals and ideas. Currently we are in a happy place and moving in the same direction where creative and professional practice are in sync. 

Do you have a favorite project? Completed or in progress.

How does one choose a favorite among their children? There are certainly pivotal projects that are meaningful for different reasons. Lions Den was our first project, and impactful as the first physical manifestation of ideas we had explored as students. It was an invigorating experience allowing us to move from academic theory into practice. 44HR was an interior design of a speakeasy bar in Kuala Lumpur. This project stands out as maturing into a different design paradigm, which we would characterize as a transition from an aesthetics of relational complexity towards paradoxical complexity. The former is preoccupied with digital virtuosity and its effects, the latter is more oriented towards disciplinary conundrums with outcomes that are more unpredictable.

If we had to choose a favorite project, our stock answer would be that the current project is always the favorite. We are currently working on a COVID-19 era project. A client has asked us to design a private mountain lodge in Vermont because, according to his research, it’s the most climate resilient region in the continental U.S. Accordingly, the home’s zany array of programs is an interesting symptom of the anxieties that we are all living through. We are approaching the project as an architectural decoy, where a familiar lodge behaves in unfamiliar ways. Like Massimo Bottura’s famous dish Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano in Different Textures and Temperatures, an everyday item can be rendered in radically unlike forms.

If you could describe your work/practice in three words, what would they be?

Friendship: Our friendship comes first from which everything flows after. We seek out relationships with clients and contractors that have similar values as we do and strive to create a sense of trust and collegiality. Fundamentally, architecture is a social practice and without that acknowledgement, good architecture can never happen.

Deviant: Architects design buildings and cities that are fundamentally constrained by regulatory codes, habitual practices, and serialized parts. Regardless of the architectural approach, one must wrestle the concept out of the generic systems of the world. So, by definition, architectural history is composed of ideas and buildings that deviate from orthodoxy.  

Paradise: There’s a very good essay by Dave Hickey called “Wonderful Shoes” where he describes the difference between paradise and utopia. Fundamentalists are always forcing their utopias onto others, while those that tend to their own paradisiacal gardens couldn’t be bothered. Hickey describes the garden as “the protean array of trivial things, real and imaginary, for which we all reach outward defines us more profoundly than all our moral certainties.” Architects love their utopias. But we think it might be more interesting, delightful, and inclusive to design and tend to our “gardens.”