Showing posts from category: architecture
National Grand Theater
Architecture is still a fledgeling industry, whose recent successes mustn’t be allowed to obscure endemic problems of appreciation and organization. Such were the conclusions of “China Architecture 10 Years (2000-2010): Architecture & Society,” a series of forums (held in Beijing and Shanghai, with another scheduled in Guangzhou) inviting local architects and government officials to discuss China’s past and future relationship with architecture.
Rise of the modern
Throughout history, China has contributed architecure styles such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Suzhou gardens and the Shanghai Shikumen, innovations with typically Chinese characteristics. But where are the modern styles?
In the past 10 years, a series of events, including the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the 2010
Guangzhou Asian Games, have seen China’s cityscapes enjoy worldwide coverage as a modern showcase of rapidly rising, large concrete buildings.
Nowadays, if Beijing and Shanghai are mentioned, constructions such as the National Grand Theater, the new China Central Television headquarters, the National Stadium (the Bird’s Nest), or Shanghai World Financial Center (until now, the highest building in the world) and Jin Mao Tower immediately come to mind. Their common features are that they are large, tall and modern.
At the Shanghai forum, Yang Ming, the director of the East China Architectural Design and Research Institute, declared that the achievements of the past 10 years are so huge that one could effectively ignore any construction done in the first 20 years of reform and opening-up.
“At present, when you go outside, 80 percent of the outstanding buildings you can see in China were built during the last 10 years,” Yang observed.
Yang pointed out that since the National Grand Theater project was designed by French architect Paul Andreu and began construction in 2001, more and more domestic construction projects in China have opened their doors to foreign architects and Sino-foreign cooperations are rapidly emerging here. “It is really a very good opportunity for the future of Chinese architecture,” Yang said.
Big is better
Most of the architects and experts involved in the forums agreed with the analysis and thought that the recent success was closely related to events in China during this time.
According to Hu Yue, director of the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design and Research, there is a correlation, unique in China, that when grand events take place, large buildings always appear.
“Throughout the history of world architecture, large buildings were not always related to big events,” Hu said, “Of course, China has the largest population in the world, with plenty of reasons for big buildings, but whether it’s necessary or worthy to invest so much human and material resources into them is worthy of consideration.”
Hu wondered, “What on earth is good architecture?” In his opinion, there seemed to be two criteria in China for judging.
“One is from the government and is the ‘official’ one, which usually thinks that ‘large’ and ‘important’ symbolic buildings are good …The other is repressing the public and the media, who seem always to have the opposite view and judgment to the official criterion,” said Hu.
Zhuang Weimin, director of the Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University, expressed his helplessness as an architect when facing this “offical” dilemma. In order to meet the deadlines of large events like the Olympic Games and the World Expo, he said, of design projects always have to be finished within a very short time. “The years of working experience of the architect cannot be well-matched with the design and the construction. We are always pitched into designing,” he complained.
“Moreover, once finished, are there any [buildings] that really have architects’ own care and thought inside? I’m not sure.”
Duty of an architect
For critic Wang Mingxian in Beijing, the problem was different. Although he conceded the foreign and Chinese success of the last decade, in Wang’s opinion, “this period has not raised a mature, worldly, influential and contemporary Chinese architecture team. [Their] force is dispersed and scattered.”
Yu Ting, a Shanghai architect, and Sun Jiwei, head of Jiading district, had their own views. Yu pointed out that procedures and approvals beyond the ability of architects have always been needed in China. Yu thought that, for most of the time, it is enough that an architect carefully finish the task.
Sun disagreed, stating that architects had a different duty. “They must learn how to examine their own problems,” Sun said. “As long as the architect really has his own personal pursuits and ideals, the government will always need and support them.
“Not just something unconventional,” he further explained. “But [someone who] can really supply good, especially environmental friendly, designs with limited resources – not very avant-garde or conceptual – but requiring a large amount of human and financial resources.”
As Wang said at the very beginning, the past 10 years may have been brilliant for Chinese architecture but have also produced the most problems. These are ones not only architects, but also everyone involved in Chinese architecture, need to think about and consider deeply.
Monumental victims of dwindling finances, public backlash and political roadblocks, many designs from the world’s most celebrated architects never broke ground. Promising much in their form and magnitude, the stunning structures exist only as colorfully rendered visions on a lost landscape. Here, man’s best unmade plans.
Zaha Hadid's proposed Dubai Performing Arts Center was a 2009 victim of the global economic slowdown.
In his classic novel “Invisible Cities,” Italo Calvino envisioned a building, in a city called Fedora, containing a series of small globes. The visitor peering into each would see a small city, a model of a different Fedora. “These are the forms the city could have taken,” wrote Calvino, “if for one reason or another, it had not become what we see today.” In the real world, one can stand on a street in Manhattan and look into one’s iPhone, where the app “Museum of the Phantom City: Other Futures” reveals the New York that might have been: from the fantastic (Buckminster Fuller’s projected Midtown-covering dome) to the nearly realized (Diller and Scofidio’s Eyebeam Museum).
Architectural history is told by the victors, city skylines their monuments. But there are also missing monuments, those projects which, by dint of political folly, the capricious tides of public taste or simple financial overreach, never break ground. The credit crisis, for example, has turned a presumptive architectural fantasyland in Dubai, that emirate of excess—where submerged hotels or $3 billion cities in the form of chessboards were the order of the day—into a graveyard of gauzy renderings.
The financial collapse claimed so many schemes that the architectural and design provocateurs Constantin Boym and Laurene Leon Boym, known for their small metal replicas of such buildings as the Chernobyl plant (as part of the “Buildings of Disaster” series), began in 2009 to produce a series of so-called “Recession Souvenirs,” projects like Norman Foster’s Russia Tower. “But the series was short-lived,” says Constantin Boym, speaking from Doha, Qatar. “There was not much enthusiasm in this black humor any more.” (The few that were made, however, are highly collectible.)
As is suggested by their difficulty in getting built, unbuilt projects are often superlative in some sense, as much a statement as an edifice. Boris Iofan’s neoclassical Palace of the Soviets, for example, on which construction began in 1937, gradually morphed (with input from Stalin) into what would have been the world’s largest skyscraper. War intervened, however, and its steel frame was repurposed into bridges in 1941.
Norman Foster's Russia Tower. Photos: Renderings to Remember - These brilliant designs from some of the world's greatest architects never saw the light of day.
Even when absent, unbuilt projects can exert a curiously powerful hold on the cultural imagination: Étienne-Louis Boullée’s massively spherical 18th-century cenotaph for Isaac Newton still looms, like the Montgolfier balloon that was said to have inspired it, over the architectural landscape. The 1960s British proposal by Cedric Price for his Fun Palace, with its visual echoes in the Centre Pompidou, now looks prophetic.
Perhaps the most common, and salient, feature of unbuilt projects is that every architect, at some point in his career, will design one—or several. Will Jones, author of “Unbuilt Masterworks of the 21st Century,” says these are not necessarily negatives in an architect’s career. “If an architect can look back upon it without too much bitterness, it’s the perfect area to test out ideas,” he says. “It’s a proving ground, that they take on and can use in future buildings.” Jones notes that Richard Rogers’s Welsh Assembly building, for example, contains ideas from his unbuilt Rome Congress Center design, which itself, the firm notes, advanced themes from a competition for the Tokyo International Forum project.
The building itself hardly sailed to completion; Rogers was briefly fired from the project. But he ultimately avoided the fate of Zaha Hadid, whose Cardiff Bay Opera House, one of the most lamented unbuilt projects of the past few decades, crashed amid the rocky shoals of politics—nationalist, classist (The Sun denounced using Lottery funds for a project for “Welsh toffs”) and aesthetic. “It devastated us,” Hadid says. But this, and a subsequent slew of unbuilt competition entries, “tested our ideas on landscape topography, and you can see the results of this now in all of our work.” Hadid may be the only architect with two unbuilt opera houses (a project in Dubai was terminated), not to mention a celebrated—and built—opera house in Guangzhou, China.
Sometimes unbuilt projects turn out to have a rather unexpected second life. The young Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, whose firm designed the Danish Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, entered a competition in 2008 for a resort project in the north of Sweden. The firm lost the competition. But when they showed the work to a Chinese developer, he was struck by the fact that the building’s shape resembled the Chinese character for “people.” The firm hired a feng shui master, scaled the building up to “Chinese proportions,” and the “People’s Building” is now slated for Shanghai’s Bund.
With China’s expanding economic might, its low-cost labor, and relative lack of restrictions in blank-slate cities like Guangzhou, unbuilt projects have been a rarity. This is common in places where economic booms and cultural dreams conspire. As Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne argues, “Los Angeles was known for much of the 20th century as the city where anything—and everything—could and did get built, from massive subdivisions, to avant-garde houses clinging to hillsides, to hot dog stands shaped like hot dogs.”
On the flip side, however, sits another kind of “unbuilt” architecture—that which is torn down. And Los Angeles, Hawthorne says, rarely paused to reflect as it knocked down iconic architecture. Today, he says, with open land more scarce, seismic and other building codes constricted, it’s much harder to get things built. So now, as it is elsewhere, the destroyed and the unbuilt jostle in the collective imagination, and, as Hawthorne describes it, “the black-and-white photograph of the long-ago destroyed landmark is now joined in the collective imagination by the sleek digital rendering of the high-design project that couldn’t get financing.”
View Building’s slideshow
Article in WSJ
architects, architecture, modern architecture, modern buildings, new buildings, Urban Planning
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Bjarke Ingels, Christopher Hawthorne, Constantin Boym, Invisible Cities, Laurene Leon Boym, Norman Foster, TOM VANDERBILT, Wall Street Journal, Will Jones, Zaha Hadid
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Photograph: © Alan Karchmer
As the sixth building designed by the firm for Northeastern’s new West Campus, this 140,000 square foot mixed-use building completes the build-out of the 1.2 million square foot Master Plan.
The building reinforces the university’s academic mission and commitment to creating a new mixed-use sector of campus. Creating a vibrant, high-density environment that is active at all hours of the day, the building embodies the spirit of “living & learning.” It includes three significant components: Freshman Honors Housing, a Cultural Center, and an Academic Center.
The Honors Housing, with 230 beds in six-person apartments, celebrates academic excellence at the heart of this new mixed-use precinct. A two-story, four-part lounge (including Lounge, Study Room, Laundry, and Study Nook) encourages interaction among residents while simultaneously offering places for group/individual study. The Honors Program offices occupy a prominent ground-floor location at the front door to the Honors Housing.
The Cultural Center, located on the lower two floors, celebrates academic diversity and outreach. Together with the building’s residential and academic spaces, it makes the building a hub of student life.
Photograph: © Alan Karchmer
The Academic Center complements the Honors Housing, helping the university achieve its goal of strengthening the Honors community. It includes seven classrooms (300 seats total) and a 270-seat auditorium. The Academic Center anchors the lower three floors to the central pedestrian promenade of the West Campus.
Photograph: © Alan Karchmer
Project details
Architect: William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.
Associate Firm: Stull and Lee, Inc. Architecture and Planning
Owner: Northeastern University
Location: Boston
Engineer, MEP/FP: Cosentini Associates, Inc.
Engineer, Structural: LeMessurier Consultants, Inc.
General Contractor: Turner Construction Company
Landscape Architect: Pressley Associates, Inc.
Lighting: Ripman Lighting Consultants
Via archinnovations
Signs of recovery – but some practices just hanging on
Work for architects in the US stayed close to break-even level during the first quarter of this year.
The American Institute of Architects reported that the score for its Architecture Billings Index was 50.5 for March – down slightly on the 50.6 recorded the previous month. Any mark above 50 reflects an increase in billings. The new projects inquiry index was 58.7, up from February’s figure of 56.4.
AIA chief economist Kermit Baker said: “Currently, architecture firms are essentially caught swimming upstream in a situation where demand is not falling back into negative territory but also not exhibiting the same pace of increases seen at the end of 2010.
“The range of conditions reported continues to span a very wide spectrum with some firms reporting an improving business environment and even ramping up staffing, while others continue to operate in survival mode. The catalyst for a more robust recovery is likely financing.”
Article via Building Design Mag
Projects showcase excellence in sustainable design principles and reduced energy consumption
Photo credit: Casey Dunn
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) have selected the top ten examples of sustainable architecture and green design solutions that protect and enhance the environment. The projects will be honored at the AIA 2011 National Convention and Design Exposition in New Orleans.
The COTE Top Ten Green Projects program, now in its 15th year, is the profession’s best known recognition program for sustainable design excellence. The program celebrates projects that are the result of a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems and technology. They make a positive contribution to their communities, improve comfort for building occupants and reduce environmental impacts through strategies such as reuse of existing structures, connection to transit systems, low-impact and regenerative site development, energy and water conservation, use of sustainable or renewable construction materials, and design that improves indoor air quality.
The 2011 COTE Top Ten Green Projects jury includes: Joshua W. Aidlin, AIA, Aidlin Darling Design; Mary Guzowski, University of Minnesota School of Architecture; Kevin Kampschroer, General Services Administration, Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings; Mary Ann Lazarus, AIA LEED AP, HOK; Jennifer Sanguinetti, P.E. LEED AP, Smart Buildings & Energy Management, BC Housing; and Lauren Yarmuth, LEED AP, YRG New York.
Cherokee Studios, Los Angeles
BROOKS + SCARPA (formerly Pugh + Scarpa)
This urban infill, mixed-use, market-rate housing project was designed to incorporate green design as a way of marketing a green lifestyle. The design maximizes the opportunities of the mild, Southern California climate with a passive cooling strategy. Together with high-efficiency LED and electric lighting, photo and occupancy sensors, and natural daylighting – energy use was minimized. 100% of the total regularly occupied building area is day lit and can be ventilated with operable windows. A combination of cool roof covered in solar panels, green roof, and blown-in cellulose insulation complete an efficient building shell exceeding California Title 24 by 47%.
First Unitarian Society Meeting House, Madison, WI
The Kubala Washatko Architects, Inc.
The 20,000-square-foot addition to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed national historic landmark Meeting House is approximately 40% more efficient than a comparable base case facility. The new building design features recycled-content and locally-sourced materials. CO2 sensors trigger a ventilation system that provide energy savings when spaces are unoccupied. 91% of regularly occupied areas are daylit though Individual lighting controls are contained in all building areas. The addition nearly doubles the building footprint but a vegetated roof and a reduction in parking spaces actually increases the percentage of pervious vegetated surface on the property.
Kiowa County K-12 Schools, Greensburg, KS
BNIM Architects
Following the devastating tornado that destroyed their town and schools, USD 422 chose a bold strategy to combine their schools into a single K-12 facility that would align with the town’s sustainable comprehensive master plan. The facilities design optimizes daylighting and natural ventilation in all classrooms, which increases student academic performance/potential and focus. The site and building design reduce the urban heat island effect on Greensburg through open area allocation and diverse landscaping. A 50-kilowatt wind turbine provides a portion of the electricity needs while the remaining power is generated at the wind farm located outside of town.
High Tech High Chula Vista, Chula Vista, CA
Studio E Architects
This public charter school serving 550 students in grades 9-12 with an approach rooted in project-based learning uses a building management system which integrates a weather station, and monitors and controls the lighting and mechanical systems of the facilities, in addition to the irrigation and domestic water systems. This optimizes thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting levels, and conserves energy and water. The facilities reflect the school’s guiding principles of personalization, adult-world connection, and common intellectual mission. These principles permeate every aspect of life at HTH: the small school and class sizes, the openness and transparency, sustainable design attributes, and showcasing of student work in-progress.
LIVESTRONG Foundation, Austin, TX
Lake|Flato Architects
The adaptive reuse of a 1950’s built warehouse transformed the concrete tilt-wall building to provide a multi-functional office space for the staff of 62. 88% of the materials from the demolition of the dilapidated warehouse were recycled and used in the new design. In order to allow for the most engaging open office environment, the team replaced the roof’s center bays with north facing clerestory windows that harvest ample diffused daylight for the core workspace. No toxic chemicals are used in or around the building in accordance with green housekeeping and landscape procedures adopted by the Foundation. Achieving LEED Gold certification, the project reflects the LiveStrong mission “to inspire and empower people affected by cancer.”
LOTT Clean Water Alliance, Olympia, WA
The Miller | Hull Partnership
While most sewage treatment plants are invisible to their communities and separated by a chain link fence, the LOTT Clean Water Alliance Regional Service Center is a visible and active participant in the public life of Olympia. Different strategies were utilized to control solar heat gain, improve the energy performance of the building, and introduce daylight and provide views. Methane generated from the plant’s waste treatment process is used in a cogeneration plant to generate electricity and heat. The heat is used directly in the building through a low temperature water loop connected to water source heat pumps, thus eliminating the need for a boiler, cooling tower, or geothermal field.
OS House, Racine, WI
Johnsen Schmaling Architects
Occupying a narrow infill lot in an old city neighborhood at the edge of Lake Michigan, this LEED Platinum home demonstrates how a small residence built with a moderate budget can become a confident, new urban constituent. The local climate, with its very cold winters and hot, humid summers, required a careful mix of active and passive design strategies to ensure proper interior conditioning. Taking advantage of the lake breeze and the site’s solar exposure, outdoor rooms were created to reduce the house’s depth, allowing for maximum natural cross-ventilation and daylight to wash the inside. The house features a compact structured plumbing system with low-flow fixtures throughout and an on-demand hot water circulating pump, significantly reducing water consumption.
Research Support Facility (RSF) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO
RNL Design
With the goal of creating the largest commercial net-zero energy structure in the country, the building is meant to serve as a blueprint for a net-zero energy future and influence others in the building industry to pursue low energy and net-zero energy performance. NREL and Department of Energy’s goal is to transform innovative research in renewable energy and energy efficiency into market-viable technologies and practices. Many of the integrated passive design strategies such as daylighting and natural ventilation strongly support both energy and human performance. An open office plan resulted in a higher density workplace reducing the building footprint per person.
Step Up on 5th, Santa Monica, CA
BROOKS + SCARPA (formerly Pugh + Scarpa)
This mixed-use project provides 46 studio apartments of permanent affordable housing and supportive services for the homeless and mentally disabled population in the heart of downtown Santa Monica. The density of the project is 258 dwelling units/acre, which exceeds the average density of the Manhattan borough of New York City by more than 10%. The building is located in a transit-oriented location with access to community resources and services, providing a healthy living environment for residents and using resources efficiently. Based on California Title 24-2005 published by USGBC on this building is nearly 50% more efficient than a conventionally designed structure of this type.
Vancouver Convention Centre West, Vancouver, British Columbia
Design Architect: LMN Architects, Prime Architects: DA/MCM
As the world’s first LEED Platinum convention center, this project is designed to bring together the complex ecology, vibrant local culture and urban environment, embellishing their inter-relationships through architectural form and materiality. The living roof, at 6 acres it is the largest in Canada, hosting some 400,000 indigenous plants. Free cooling economizers can provide cooling for most of the busy seasons for the convention centre. The heating and cooling is provided by very high efficiency, sea water heat pumps powered by renewable hydro electricity. The interior is fitted throughout with CO2, VOC, and humidity sensors, which can be monitored in conjunction with airflow, temperature, and lighting controls to optimize air quality on a room-by-room basis.
Visit www.aia.org.
architecture, architecture critic, Green Architecture
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aia, AIA LEED AP, Aidlin Darling Design, BC Housing, General Services Administration, HOK, Jennifer Sanguinetti, Joshua W. Aidlin, Kevin Kampschroer, Lauren Yarmuth, LEED AP, Mary Ann Lazarus, Mary Guzowski, Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, P.E. LEED AP, Smart Buildings & Energy Management, University of Minnesota School of Architecture, YRG New York.
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UCSF, San Francisco, California
A beautifully sinuous, serpentine building that makes use of every foot of available space.
The Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building is designed to foster intensive collaboration and a cross-pollination of ideas among scientists representing a broad spectrum of labs and disciplines. Located on a steeply sloping urban hillside, the building presented the design team a unique challenge: executing a horizontal structure on an uneven site.
The main floor functions as one continuous laboratory divided into four split levels, each stepping down a half-story as the building descends the forested hillside slope, and each level is topped by an office cluster and a grass roof with wildflowers and plants. Exterior ramps and stairs, taking advantage of the temperate climate, provide continuous circulation between all levels, and the facility connects to three nearby research buildings and UCSF Medical Center via a pedestrian bridge.
To further promote collaboration, the laboratories occupy a horizontal open-floor plan, with a flexible, custom-designed casework system that enables the rapid reconfiguration of the research program. Abundant south-facing glazing fills the open laboratories and offices with natural light and views of the wooded slope of Mount Sutro nearby.
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OpenBuildings, a global archive of buildings for architecture lovers and industry professionals, today announced it has secured a $2 million Series A funding round led by BlueRun Ventures and Index Ventures. John Malloy of BlueRun Ventures will join the board and the funding will be used to expand the team in London, UK and Sofia, Bulgaria as well as improve the existing technology of this cross media service.
“OpenBuildings aims to promote the sharing of architectural knowledge and gives a platform for discourse between professionals and the general public. What I find exciting is that OpenBuildings allows people to discover buildings and then share and discuss them in a completely new way. I think this is going to really stimulate people’s interaction with architecture.” Adel Zakout, Co-Founder, CEO.
OpenBuildings allows users to learn about and be inspired by the world’s finest architecture. Any registered user can share their architectural knowledge by finding and submitting building information, uploading media and opinions about historic, contemporary or conceptual buildings. The site currently has 50k registered users and holds data on over 40k buildings from across the globe; it aims to collaboratively archive the world’s built environment. OpenBuildings has an accompanying iPhone app, ‘Buildings’, which already has over 250K downloads.
“Services like OpenBuildings are uniquely positioned to ignite passionate audiences, architecture enthusiasts in this case, by leveraging mobile technology to deliver content and community to users wherever they are. This type of community engagement and information sharing is really brought to life with mobile technology which allows you to physically stand in front of a point of interest and take in all the relevant information at the same time,” says John Malloy, General Partner at BlueRun Ventures.
The funding coincides with the launch of a new version of the website, which features updated information and content as well as new functionality to serve the community. The new version includes:
· Daily-featured buildings to highlight the latest newsworthy architecture.
· Easy submit process for architectural enthusiasts to add the buildings they love.
· Extended submit process for professionals to add more detail and depth to their projects.
OpenBuildings is an intelligent, filterable building directory for professionals, architecture-lovers, tourists and students and allows users to quickly and easily discover, learn about, discuss and share architecture that interests them.
“Learning about architecture was a frustrating experience –there was simply no single destination online for research. The lack of information and discussion about such an elemental thing in life, the built environment, has always confused me – surely something that is so important to our quality of life should be open and accessible instead of being decided behind closed doors.” Tom Mallory Co-Founder, COO.
The Saudi Royal family today unveiled plans to construct the world’s tallest building – which will be an incredible one MILE high.
Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia will be 1.6km tall (one mile) when it is completed and consist of hotels, offices, luxury apartments and a shopping center.
The structure will be twice the height of the world’s current tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and FIVE times as tall as Britain’s highest building, The Shard.
It will take a staggering 12 minutes to reach the top of the £12 billion building in the escalator.
The mega structure will boast a staggering 12 million cubic square feet of interior space – 12 times more than Number One Canada Water in London’s Canary Wharf.
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New York University to spread over two million square feet around I’M Pei’s Silver Towers site.
Aerial View Of NYU’s Expansion Plans With The Silver Towers On The Left. Courtesy NYU
On March 16, NYU announced updates for their latest expansion plan, part of NYU 2031, that seemed to say the University had heard the public’s criticism and was ready to be a nicer neighbor. Previously, the school proposed a 400-foot tower on the Silver Towers site, where three concrete towers designed by I. M. Pei and completed in 1966 currently stand; two are owned by NYU while the third is a is a middle-income cooperative. In the new rendition, the proposed fourth Silver Tower is gone. This hotel/residence raised an outcry before being scrapped in November and has now been replaced in part by something called the Morton Williams tower, a 14-story building structure for the site on the corner of Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place currently occupied by a Morton Williams supermarket. This will be a two-tiered building with a seven-story public NYC school below and seven stories of dorms above.
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- The SOFT HOUSE by KVA Matx in Germany.
Making my selection of buildings this week led me to a surprising discovery about the representation of women in architecture. I started with a simple enough premise to select ten buildings by female architects off the top of my head. I was immediately picking out Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima and Gae Aulenti; I thought this selection would essentially pick itself. Instead, what I discovered was that finding female-designed architecture, when excluding husband/wife teams, is extremely difficult and often the only work I came across was more akin to interior design.
I’m absolutely aware that I’m writing an article about women’s role in architecture as a man. I have three older sisters and should know better, but I’m ignoring the big flashing warning sirens, so I’ll go to the hard facts. Equality in the construction industry is notoriously poor — in the UK for example, just 10% of people employed by the construction industry are women; amazingly the figures for registered, working architects are similarly disproportional at just 12%. This was shocking to me; at architecture school there was equality in numbers — so why is this ratio so low?
The average number of female graduate architects in the UK is 38%, so there is an enormous drop off rate as they enter the professional sphere. When Robert Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, was asked in 2007 why there are so few women architects in the world, he responded with some interesting insights:
Oh my god I’m gonna… This is a complicated… Architecture schools… like Yale have basically 50/50. Maybe fewer women than men, but not many. And that’s been true of architecture school since I began to teach pretty much. It was definitely not true when I went to architecture school, which was a boy’s club for sure. But women come to the critical points in their career when they embark upon motherhood. And architecture is a totally time consuming — disproportionate to any amount of any amount of money any architect is paid — business. Plus the global reach of architecture today demanding unbelievable amounts of travel — national and international travel — has added to the complication. And so women find it harder. They get torn between their desire to have a family and be with their family and pursue their profession. And I think that’s really the reason that, in the long run, women are not seen where they should be at the top of the profession. Because certainly in terms of their talents and their professional skills, there’s no difference between men and women.
Is there an obvious femininity to the architecture presented here? Should there be? Do you think that the poor representation in the industry might be influencing the work of the few women who do succeed? I think these are questions that must be asked at a very basic level. For me it is a scary idea that our built environment will continue to be dominated by the design of men as it has been throughout history. It is a missed opportunity and a discussion that must be raised. In a world of so-called equality should we expect women to fit into a profession of architecture that was totally evolved by men? Or instead should the profession of architecture adapt to women in an effort for real equality?
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Via Tom Mallory, COO and co-founder, OpenBuildings.com
