Archinect - Features

'Everyone Talks About Silver Linings, It's Hard to Talk About Opportunities': A Conversation with Elizabeth Leber, Managing Partner at Beyer Blinder Belle

2022-02-01T12:01:00-05:00

"In times of crisis and seismic moments come great opportunities for how you reshape who you are and how your employees view you. You begin to reshape your values, and for me, becoming a Managing Partner was an important time." These are the words of Elizbeth Leber, Managing Partner at Beyer Blinder Belle (BBB). When we connected via Zoom on a Tuesday morning in January, our conversation developed into a wonderful chat about unconventional paths to architecture, her love for art history and adaptive reuse, and the importance of taking off your headphones.

Now that we're in the year 2022, practitioners continue to make efforts towards re-envisioning what a firm leader looks like. While women have resiliently changed and challenged the field of architecture for decades, Beyer Blinder Belle's Elizabeth Leber is no exception. “Any business leader needs to have empathy and the ability to identify with our clients and our staff,” expressed Elizabeth, “It’s important to remember that each...

Othering Blackness in Design: Reflections with Walter Hood

2021-07-02T14:24:00-04:00

Mr. Hood wouldn’t let his son go to art school, so he had to find the next best thing. Going through the rest of the list of college majors—accounting, advertising, agriculture, etc.—nothing else called out to him in the same way nor made the vision of the future he wanted any clearer or any more desirable. But then, an accidental discovery halfway through high school helped to make this vision a little less murky. One day, while walking through the hallways, Walter happened to stumble upon a very strange collection of people in a classroom. They were all standing at boards, in all-white cloaks, meticulously drafting away with T-squares in one hand and graphite in the other.

Reflecting on America's Perception of Indigenous Architecture With Tammy Eagle Bull

2021-06-09T08:42:00-04:00

Tammy Eagle Bull, FAIA, AICAE, NCARB, is an architect and President of the firm Encompass Architects based in Lincoln, Nebraska, which she co-founded in 2002. She is a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and a graduate of Arizona State University and the University of Minnesota. This discussion occurred between March and May of 2021 and explored the changes that have occurred in the past 40 years where Ms. Eagle Bull has been involved in the architecture industry, since the time she first began studying architecture through the challenges of this past year.

A Conversation with Katie Swenson On Rebuilding Trust Through the Design of Safe and Healthy Spaces

2020-04-08T09:00:00-04:00

The question of the architect's role within the community has continued to grow and change in recent years thanks, in part, to the work of dedicated individuals like Katie Swenson. Her involvement and leadership within organizations like Enterprise Community Partners and MASS Design Group have enabled her to help redirect architecture’s creative and generative energies towards fulfilling social and community goals through projects that include the creation of affordable housing and healthful spaces.

Archinect was able to chat with Swenson and learn about her journey from comparative literature to architecture, housing, and community development. In addition, Swenson discusses what it means to be a community architect in the COVID-19 era and how two fellowship opportunities changed the course of her professional career.

"I went in with the question,” Swenson tells Archinect, “‘how can love and kindness be tools for community development?’ I came out appreciating the broader implicati...

A Conversation with Julia Gamolina, Founder of Madame Architect

2020-03-08T09:04:00-04:00

When Archinect first met Julia Gamolina, we looked at her unique journey and how she navigated the complexities of professional practice early in her career. Julia graduated with a degree in architecture from Cornell University and kickstarted her path as an enthusiastic young designer. But soon, she realized the traditional path in architecture failed to capture her robust passions and interests. Ever since she was a young girl, Julia has had a wide range of interests and inclinations and, for her, architecture has served as the vehicle to fulfill those inherent characteristics.

Today, Julia continues to nourish one of the most potent platforms advocating for and celebrating women in architecture, Madame Architect, which she founded back in 2018. She has climbed the professional ladder, now sitting as Director of Strategy at the ever-growing Trahan Architects. I recently reconnected with Julia to discuss her career, expertise in communications, thoughts on women in architecture, an...

A Conversation with Curtis Moody, FAIA on What It Means to Help Shape a Future for Black Architects

2020-02-29T07:00:00-05:00

Within the realm of architectural practice, the need to write and re-frame the narratives and contributions of women in architecture, Black architects, and other minority-identifying designers has gained increasing urgency in recent years. And while architects like Paul Revere Williams, Phillip Freelon, Norma Merrick Sklarek, Zena Howard, Gabrielle Bullock, and Kimberly Dowdell are nearly household names in design, these architects constitute but a few of Black architects who have impacted the profession.

Curtis Moody, a renowned architect based in Columbus, Ohio who has been practicing for over 38 years, is another such architect. When he first started his practice back in 1982, his goal was not only to establish a thriving architecture practice but also build a firm that would be a representation of a group that is often overlooked and misrepresented. Since then, he has expanded Moody Nolan into a practice consisting of 230 employees with 12 offices across the U.S.

Archinect spen...

A Conversation with Audrey Sato on Fostering Hard and Soft Skills in Architecture

2020-01-07T12:27:00-05:00

For architect Audrey Sato, studying architecture may not have seemed like an obvious choice at first, but she eventually realized that her passion for sustainability and a desire to build in parallel with nature made her a natural fit for the job. Sato grew up in Hawaii, and after graduating with a double concentration in Visual Arts and Architecture Studies from Brown University, interned at architecture firms to start off her career.

The experience inspired her to pursue a Master's of Architecture degree at California Polytechnic State University Pomona. After her studies, Sato chose to start an independent practice, Sato Architects, not out of necessity, but because it was "a natural and practical thing" for her to pursue. If you ask Sato now, her plan at the time was to get going and find a way to "do it right later," a vision that, over nearly a decade of practice, Sato admits, "just kept working." Today, aside from running her own firm, Sato is a LEED-Accredited Professional ...

A Conversation With Jennifer Bonner: Architecture's Playful Provocateur of Practice and Pedagogy

2019-06-21T12:14:00-04:00

Understanding architectural practice and pedagogy is one thing; learning how to merge them together and challenge its idiosyncrasies is another. A name often associated with playful obscurity, Jennifer Bonner is a powerful force in the academic and practicing world of architecture. The Huntsville, Alabama native often thanks the city of Las Vegas for her interest in pursuing architecture, but owes much of her highly specific design aesthetic to her experience challenging design systems. Pulling influence and application from ordinary things outside of architecture, Bonner learned to embrace the every day in order to understand any object or task can be represented in architecture.

Pushing herself, her students, and the profession, Bonner continually finds ways to take risks and find new opportunities for discourse and disruption through playfulness and architectural representation. This week Archinect chats with Jennifer Bonner for an in-depth interview discussing the power of alter...

A Conversation with Pamela Tan, the Architectural Designer Challenging Malaysia's Design Perspective

2019-05-28T12:59:00-04:00

Studying architecture is a challenging yet rewarding transdisciplinary nature, according to Malaysian architectural designer Pamela Tan. Through her work, she explores architecture as a celebration of diversity and narrative. After receiving her architectural education from Taylor's University and the University of Greenwich, Tan set out to explore various ways the discipline of architecture can intertwine within other disciplines such as art, philosophy, social science, literature, and poetry. Blending the speculative with ethereality, movement, and patterns, Tan has used her multi-dimensional approach to design in ways that highlight community and alternative perspectives.

Challenging Malaysia's perspectives on the importance of art, architecture, and design culture, Tan has pursued these interests by merging these fields in order to recreate opportunities for architectural narratives in Southeast Asia. This week Archinect chats with Tan for an in-depth interview discussing influ...

A Conversation With Julia Koerner, Architecture’s Queen of 3D Fabrication

2019-05-06T12:00:00-04:00

From the runway to the big screen, and now the red carpet, Austrian architect Julia Koerner has set herself apart as a designer due to her relentless quest for 3D fabrication mastery. Quickly becoming a household name, Koerner splits her time running her practice JK Design GmbH and her role as a faculty member at UCLA's Architecture and Urban Design department. Her architecture background is nothing short of impressive, attending the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and the Architectural Association in London. During her studies, she was surrounded and influenced by the minds of Zaha Hadid, Wolf Prix, and Greg Lynn.

Koerner's prowess in digital computation transformed her into one of the industry's leading 3D fabrication designers. Archinect spent some time with Koerner for an in-depth interview discussing her start as a designer, working in fashion, teaching, and what it was like working on the Oscar-winning film, Black Panther.