The Fluidity team with founding principal James Garland pictured in the lower left. All images courtesy of Fluidity Design Consultants.

Fluidity Design Consultants is a Los Angeles-based practice specializing in the design and engineering of water features. Established in 2002 by architect and founding principal James Garland, the firm has realized countless projects of all scales around the world in close collaboration with noteworthy architects and landscape architects.

For this week's Studio Snapshot, we connected with Garland to find out how operating a highly specialized business differs from conventional architectural practice, what particular staffing needs the team was experiencing, and what it was like to envision the first theatrical water feature ever installed on a cruise ship.

Can you tell us how Fluidity was founded?

After some years working elsewhere and deciding it was time to work differently, a few of us set out to provide a new generation of designs. We sought ideas that were more place-specific and less about technology or fashion, and we wanted to create experiences and identities that would be terrifically creative and alive, supported by highly developed engineering skill. We wanted to create a new kind of good, and we wanted to establish a style of leadership in how to do things, with the lofty atmosphere of that kind of professional leadership. This sounds a little grand, but the field was wide open for change. We are still trying to do those things, almost twenty years later. 

We have always been obsessed with the heroism of professional excellence, so we marketed our services to the finest architecture and landscape architecture practices who would bother to talk with us — which at first were not so many, though we did get a very nice letter back from Cesar Pelli (directing us elsewhere!). 

We began with no signed projects, just an idea, optimism, and some friends in the world. Karma was in our minds, and we were cautious not to injure others in the process of starting, such as stealing clients or taking undue credit for past work. 

How many people are currently employed at your studio? How is your office structured? 

Twenty-plus people work in Fluidity (some arriving via Archinect), forming a community arranged something like a much larger A/E practice, with design and technical people working closely together in small project teams, shepherded by senior design principals. We have an assertive design culture — based mostly on quite serious optic and aural analysis which overlaps with our architectural and urban design backgrounds, and we are working to mirror a similarly strong engineering culture. While design issues naturally take the lead to answer problems, we try to not let any idea stray far without enfolding engineering concerns. Quoting Miyazaki from 'The Wind Rises,' "Engineers make dreams into reality"; and of course, 'how' is a central ingredient in our work. 

What have been the biggest challenges starting and running your own practice? 

It is a strain for us all, working in an isolated, highly specialized, almost invisible profession. And it is easy to feel defrocked, having left the culturally rich pantheon of architecture. We have no brothers and sisters with whom to share our battle stories and be 'understood.' 

Perhaps your readers have read some of Donald Judd’s brilliantly terse art criticisms, but has anyone ever seen a fountain analyzed by the likes of Judd, Paul Goldberger, Ada Louise Huxtable, or Jane Jacobs? Our profession is both popular and ignored. But that can be a good thing, too, since when we make mistakes, exceedingly few people are informed enough to identify them. 

As architects, we all pride ourselves on our generalist mentalities, don’t we? And, we presume there must be something lesser about those who’ve narrowed and specialized. Fluidity would agree with the idea of generalist superiority, but we must raise a flag for specialization, from which we gain most of our powers and regard, not to mention the acute eyesight that the specialist develops, which is thrilling and self-affirming. So actually, it is exciting for us all to work in an isolated, highly specialized profession. There is an honor in feeling defrocked. To stand truly alone, with real substance, and carve your own way forward through a mostly undefined or misunderstood terrain, using only the hard rules that you discover to judge the quality of what you do. 

Has anyone ever seen a fountain analyzed by the likes of Judd, Paul Goldberger, Ada Louise Huxtable, or Jane Jacobs? Our profession is both popular and ignored.

Perhaps a more pertinent challenge is that we have no preparatory educations; no closely related degrees, classes, or even single lectures. This leads to staffing challenges. How do you find appropriate staff members when the work is only tangentially related to candidates' professional credentials? How can you tell if they have the right temperament, intelligence, talent, habits, potential? Who will then help shape our future, and will it be noble? 

Describe your work. How do you define your own unique style and approach? 

We approach each project openly, collaboratively, and with authentic modesty. In most cases, 'our' projects are more fundamentally someone else's, and we try not to forget that. We are neither the client nor the principal designer, since other designers are typically our clients. Our involvement can vary from 'design advice' to flying solo with relative creative and technical autonomy. 

In all projects, we seek an abstract 'Water Idea,' responding to need and rooted in craft and organizing all the issues, where the staging of mesmeric display aligns to transcend success criteria, supported by simple, sober materials and details. 

Procedurally, after the idea is approved, we explore finishes and lighting and build a mock-up. Then, we dive deep into structure, assembly, hidden fastening, non-destructive maintenance access, internal and external engineering, and so forth. Fascinating stuff, really. Lately, we have been paying extra attention to controls; much of our art regards conscious transformation, or 'motion figures.' 

What advice on successful, sustaining collaborations with other design professions can you give early-career architects? 

We do not deny that the artist alone can create greatness, but that is not the world we work in. We are part of a space where countless, highly competent people come together to perform very difficult tasks. This is where an ability to create excellence with others shines. 

'Collaboration' is not a word, it is not hype, and it is not easy. Collaboration requires insight into the skills and motivations of others, and some talented people are very good at it. We start by listening and asking questions, trying to see the project from their side. Winning the trust of others is important. We bring no hidden agendas, but we have learned not to refrain from speaking out, as sometimes people need to hear the tough news. And we have learned the exciting lesson that sometimes the most ridiculous, crackpot idea that shows up, if addressed with sincerity and dispassion, can turn out to be utterly disarming, surprisingly delightful — and even archetypally important. 

Perhaps a more pertinent challenge is that we have no preparatory educations; no closely related degrees, classes, or even single lectures. This leads to staffing challenges.

In a fundamental way, all collaborations are based on mutual regard and trust. We have finally admitted to ourselves that not all projects are really equal. Some come to us from special clients with whom we have worked before or even work regularly. These projects get special attention. We know this sounds bad; every project is important — which is true enough. But it is more true that regular relations are vital to quality, professional development, and ultimately to the creation of those few truly great projects, which can arise only from very deep collaborative efforts. 

Your firm designed the AquaTheater on the Oasis of the Seas, the first theatrical water feature ever installed on a cruise ship. Can you tell us if and how your design approach towards a commission like this differed from conventional projects? 

We don’t have any commissions in outer space, and so the next best thing is 'Oasis of the Seas' — a large ocean liner with an open-air theater built into its stern. Shipboard reality encompasses an ever-shifting 'down' position and unreliable lateral momentum vectors. The owners sought a fountain show that would be exciting (and functional) while the ship was rocking about. The shows would employ live performers (!), so the environmental design had to be perfectly safe for the cast, along with all the other design criteria. This was the kind of project that generates many interesting ideas, only some of which make it to construction. 'Neptunian Fire' might yet have worked… 

What challenges have you faced during the past pandemic months? Are you sensing a return to 'business as usual'? 

We start every day with a firm-wide virtual conference, reviewing staff activity and projects, sharing news, problems, and so forth. We used to meet only once a week, and only with managers — so, that’s a huge difference and a huge improvement. We work in Slack, Zoom, and Miro, along with email, text messaging, and phone calls. Over the past year, several people have moved out of LA to live in other places for all kinds of reasons, which would have been an exhausting deal-breaker in the past, but today, we get along. 

Perhaps there will one day be a complete return to the before days, and if that happens, Fluidity will respond in kind, but we are not planning for it. We are focused on the people, the company, and the work at hand. Proximity is just a dimension. 

Your projects exemplify the spirit of public space. Given the sudden disruption of public life during the pandemic, are you sensing a change in how public spaces will be designed in the coming years with current safety concerns in mind? 

The public space projects in our studio today do not establish 'yoga mats with 6-foot spacings.' The thinking is much higher than that. 

Each project’s water design responds with a uniquely relevant environmental statement.

We see lawns that provide generous and inviting hearts of green, activated by edges of interrelated activities and spaces that work together and offer choice. We see urban fabric being reconstituted in ways harkening prehistoric geologies and ecologies, with surprisingly civic, authentic, connective results. We see dog parks. We see creative children’s play. We see monumental public art that people really care about. Each project’s water design responds with a uniquely relevant environmental statement. There is an ongoing debate with 'Programming' on one side, based on the successful Bryant Park model, and 'Naturalism' on the other, rooted in unimpeachable Olmsted. We may see other pandemics, and people will continue to need social activity in outside open spaces, courtly or lush, for their health and sanity. 

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

We invest too much into each project to have a favorite, which would be a disservice to the others and ourselves. 

Also, it seems impossible to build the perfect construction, even with great strain, which means when the work is completed, we only see the flaws. After a while, with regrettable practice, I literally only see flaws whenever I visit a project. So, when I go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's entrance plaza, I almost can't see anything, since it almost has no flaw. Is blindness victory? 

Our team has never been stronger than it is today. I am convinced that our best projects are in our future. Maybe one day there will be a favorite. 

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

More aspirational than actual, and provided For Professional Eyes Only, I would submit these three words to describe Fluidity: 'Superlative,' 'Firmamentive,' 'Soulful.'