Lilian, for her scholarship, partnered with BuildOn, a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the international education crisis by ensuring that children living in poverty can attend school. In 2017 she traveled to Nepal, living in a village to be among the families for whom the project would support. She fundraised for materials to help build a school with gender-equal classrooms so literacy, health and community are acknowledged as fundamental human rights.
The following is a direct excerpt from Lilian’s fundraising page, five months after returning from Nepal. It was her first time she could capture her experience in words.
My Response to Adam
Adam: Hey, welcome back! How was your trip?
Me: (after a pause, in a whisper) I think my heart is a little bigger.
Those were the only words I had. They rang so true. Yet I didn’t quite know what they meant. For 5 months since returning from Nepal, I haven’t known what else to say. So I’ve just continued to think, to try to figure it out by reflecting and observing, and to keep considering what I am doing, and more importantly, how I am doing it.
Ram Ram. Danyabad. Sugur ba.
We spent one day prior to arriving at the village learning the basics of Taru.
Hi. How are you? Thank you. Yes. No. Numbers. Good morning. Good night.
And then, our trek leaders gave us our Taru names. Mine is Laksmi. In that instant, I felt myself the furthest from home and the most immersed in the experience. Then something seemed to click in all of us because we started leaning on this new language to help us transition from courteous guests visiting to wanting to become friends with our fellow villagers.
We wanted to learn how to thread sentiments together with Taru words. Good job! That was fun. Your (home or son or daughter or …) is beautiful. I admire you.Can you please show me how (again!)? I don’t feel good. Or, I feel better.Let’s go together. I really love your Masala Milk Tea. It’s so different.
I realized that you can build a relationship by practicing less than 10 phrases. I think we often forget how simple it can be and, frankly, to listen attentively to what is being said, and how, and then repeat to make sure we understood.
Pack Less. Leave Room.
I intentionally traveled with only one backpack – a personal experiment in lightness and self-reliance, but also to respect that I would be traveling to a place where I would really learn what it is like to live within your means, and even then, barely so. Our host families live this way, most with three generations under the same roof, yet there was plenty of room for my nine trek mates and me.
In our tiny abode, my partner Michaela and I huddled with our family, on the floor, around the fire, every night to make dinner, warm up, explain our lives through the pictures on our phones, and understand the precious story of love (grandma is a widow), loss (Santi left her family to be with Gris) and hope (the painted dark circles around Uron, their newborn, “so his eyesight would be good when he grew up”). Our family time reminded me to cherish density again, that intimacy is created rather quickly when you want it, and to focus on the white of people’s eyes more, preferably by candlelight. Really, you don’t need things, what you need is desire.
Grit.
Our mission to build a school with gender-equal classrooms to enable literacy and opportunity was a merely a string of words. But these came to life every day when, before 8am, the villagers had already arrived on site to work. Our daily morning ritual was a group circle where everyone so moved would be invited to share their thoughts. Our trek leaders were translators only to clarify with words what we could see and feel expressed in gesture. Nothing is lost in translation when what you mean is that you are humbled and ever so grateful to be right there, and then, with each other. And that the work you are doing will outlive each and every one of us.
Our Nepali community is physically half the size of any one of us but they easily have twice the grit. We used the same picks, shovels, hoses and gloves. But they are so much more effective because they work with a steadfastness worth admiring. The ladies, especially, wore beautiful fabrics and attire that exuded an elegant grace in spite of the sweat in their faces.
Pretty soon, the foundations we were digging were deeper than we were tall. At the end of this phase, we could all look out and see how each of the footings tied to a grade beam, thereby outlining the symbolic foundation of what we were all working on – the promise of access to opportunity. It didn’t escape me that our Nepali friends were actually educating us about a really critical synergy: knowledge + purpose. We can know a lot of things but it’s how we apply ourselves that matters. They have mastered the hardest skill – living with intention, now they can round it out with the rest – information. We, on the other hand, have some learning to do.
Today, I re-read my original aspiration, each of your amazing responses and the updates along the way. Thank you is such an understatement, as you made this humbling experience in vulnerability and community possible. It’s a gift that, in this world of increasing temporal moments, this experience is still revealing itself and my heart is continuing to grow. And for that, I am so grateful.
Click here to learn more about Lilian’s experience with BuildOn.
WRNS Studio — growing at an average of 20% annually — has named six senior associates and twelve associates to expand leadership across offices in San Francisco, Seattle, Honolulu, and New York. The new leaders help WRNS Studio stay nimble, creative, and design-forward amidst rapid growth.
“These architects and interior designers bring a diversity of interests and talents focused on research, craft, technology, equity, community, delivery, and innovative building systems.” says partner Kyle Elliott. “This plurality brings great value to our studio culture and our ability to deliver transformative projects for our clients.” The firm leadership, under sixteen partners, will now be significantly strengthened by nine senior associates and thirty-two associates.
Scott Gillespie, Jason Halaby, Edwin Halim (top row), Ed Kim, John McGill, and Rochelle Nagata-Wu (bottom row) have been named senior associates. Scott Gillespie is currently delivering a new campus for Microsoft in Silicon Valley, on track to become the largest mass timber project built to date in the U.S. Jason Halaby leads the firm’s innovative use of Virtual Reality and Building Information Modeling and implements firm-wide training and standards. Edwin Halim, with numerous interior design projects for Google, Airbnb, and Facebook, is currently working to achieve the Living Building Challenge Materials Petal for WRNS Studio’s Seattle office. Ed Kim recently delivered one of a handful of university recreation centers to target LEED Platinum in a building type that typically consumes large amounts of energy and water. John McGill, based in New York, is leading projects for Princeton, Microsoft, and numerous private developers. Rochelle Nagata-Wu, who leads the firm’s Honolulu office, is delivering projects for the Hawaii Department of Education and the Rehab Hospital of the Pacific.
The twelve new associates include Goetz Frank, Prairna Gupta Garg, Stewart Green, Alexander Key (top row), Demetra Manolas, Parvaneh Mohaddes, Jahae Park, Kelly Shaw (middle row), Susanne Susheelan, Abdel Qader Tarabien, Christian Vollmuth, and Wesley Wong (bottom row). “These new associates advance our ideals of beauty, sustainability, and a positive contribution to the public realm through everyday practice,” says partner and director of human resources, Melinda Rosenberg. “We look to them and see the future of WRNS.”
WRNS Studio has twice been named Top Firm in the U.S. in Architect magazine’s annual ranking of firms across design, sustainability, and business. Notable projects include the Sonoma Academy Durgin Guild and Commons, honored with a 2018 AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Award.
Spanish moss festoon aged oak, cresting into a deep vignette of antebellum grandeur. This is the one point perspective of Oak Alley from the Great River Road — a panorama seared into our cultural subconscious due to cameos in films such as Interview with the Vampire and Primary Colors. Yet the architectural diversity in the lower Mississippi River Delta is staggering. A variety of influences, from the Native Americans who first inhabited the South to the Spanish, French, and British colonists to early and contemporary Americans — mark the architectural landscape with buildings that reflect and respond in various ways to their climate and historical impetus.
Setting out from New Orleans, I aspired to trace the mighty Mississippi, exploring public architecture in a region often overlooked for its design sensibility. Ascending north along local roads in Louisiana and Arkansas, I used Memphis, in West Tennessee, as a turning point to make my return trip south along the Blue Highway in Mississippi.
Few structures break the green canopy of the low-lying marshlands outside greater New Orleans other than the occasional highway overpass or smokestack. Until Baton Rouge that is. Occupying the first precipice north of the Mississippi Delta, Baton Rouge’s prominence as the capitol of Louisiana is reinforced by the clustering of the state’s petrochemical industry. As refineries filtered into the region in the 1930s government functions outgrew the Old Capitol Building. A significant investment in a new capital building during the Great Depression was shepherded by Populist governor Huey Long. The new Capitol, completed in 1932, would forgo the dome and wing mimicker for a distinguished art deco tower design by Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth, notable for other public buildings in Louisiana. Rising 450 ft, the tallest of any state capitol, the tower is topped in an octagonal cupola and beacon design dominated by large windows and a wraparound observation deck. For the morbidity inclined, Huey Long, then serving a US Senator was shot in the capitol and is laid to rest in the formal gardens.
Leaving ‘Long’s Monument’ in my rearview, I entered an ecoregion defined by public intervention. The west bank of the Mississippi River in central Louisiana has historically been an ever changing landscape of floodplains, oxbows, and false rivers. With the pervasiveness of steamboat teeming the lower Mississippi in the 19th century, efforts to regulate alluvial channel patterns were initiated. I traversed an extensive system of locks, spillways, and low-sill structures managed by the US Army Corp of Engineers. Most astonishing was the road itself for drawing focus to the consistent risk of water inundation for Louisiana Highway 15 is laid out over a ten-foot levee, isolating brackish riverscapes from fertile fields.
As topography rises, the monotony of the Mississippi plains transforms to a hardwood coniferous forest. Capitalizing on this threshold, the city of Pine Bluff became an economic hub for forestry in the late 19th century and boomed again during the Second World War. By the mid 60’s, a civic center was needed to house all municipal functions and to provide a much needed stimulus for downtown development. Turning to acclaimed modernist and Arkansas native son, Edward Durell Stone laid out the three structure campus on a raised podium. The Civic Center enlists a formal colonnade and cast concrete panels, characteristics Stone advanced with the US Embassy in New Delhi and the Uptown campus of SUNY Albany. The deep overhangs, shielding users from high temperatures and humidity, are reminiscent of plantation verandas. Formal in presentation, the Civic Center breaks the traditional symmetrical layout with an askew communications tower. Much of the Civic Center is original but worn as Pine Bluff fell on hard times in the latter half of the 20th century.
Farther up the road it widens, merging into highways as you narrow in on Memphis, the largest city on the Mississippi. Long a logistical hub on the river, freight lines and interstates now crisscross the city, yet open green space still persists. A lengthy redevelopment of Shelby Farms spearheaded by master planners James Corner Field Operation, saw the penal farm transform into a recreation destination – complete with a bison herd. Designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects, a series of single story pavilions settle into the landscape. Each, its own study of elevation and pitch, share a simple material palette of mostly aluminum grating and cypress planking that form a crisp identity without feeling rustic. While within the city limits, Shelby Farms’ feels too agrarian to be considered an urban park as open fields and expansive lake front obstruct any semblance of city life.
Control over the river is still an ongoing concern. My planned stops along the road from Memphis to Vicksburg were thwarted due to higher than normal river levels, a repercussion of unseasonable heavy rainfall in the Midwest associated with climate change. Taking refuge on the bluffs of Vicksburg, the socioeconomic legacy of slavery was evident as wealth was and is concentrated on higher ground in contrast to improvised low-lying farmland. This underscores the town’s reliance on the river, as wealthy land owners utilized the river for fertilization, irrigation, and shipping. Tasked with improving navigation and instituting flood control after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the Mississippi Valley Commission took residence in a Romanesque structure that was formerly a post office and customs house in Vicksburg. The imposing red brick building was designed in 1894 by William Freret to include round windows with radiating voussoirs and elaborate high-reliefs depicting chimera—endowing the Commission with instant prestige.
Rounding out my journey, I made my way back to New Orleans. Managing to go toll-less for the first 1000 miles, I opted to pay to take the Pontchartrain Causeway. Few introductions to a city have such majesty as the Causeway. Bisecting Lake Pontchartrain, the Causeway is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world. Halfway through the 23 mile span and you will feel enveloped by a great inland sea. Then all of a sudden New Orleans appears like a mirage sprouting from a great sea.
Pressures on our waste management infrastructure have forced industries across sectors to address conventional sourcing and disposal within their supply chains. As an alternative, the circular economy emphasizes a closed loop approach that encourages sustainable consumption and production patterns. From an environmental awareness standpoint the impact is high—the economic output unlocked from this shift is even higher.
Circular City Week, a citywide festival for circular economy related topics, offered events and activities for the first time this past March. The festival highlighted the ways in which circular practices such as reducing, reusing, and recycling are transforming urban industries all over New York City. WRNSer’s fanned out across the city to learn how we as architects and citizens can design to support these innovative initiatives.
Panelists at ‘Achieving Circular Material Loops with Gypsum Wall Board’ at the Center for Architecture
Reduce
Few products are more ubiquitous in construction than drywall, which makes up to 20% of all construction waste and has toxic effects when it degrades in a landfill (hydrogen sulfide is produced by sulfate-reducing bacteria under anaerobic conditions). A panel discussion, held at the Center for Architecture, explored ways to increase gypsum recycling and diversion to landfills. Gypsum can be recycled infinitely, but currently only 5% of gypsum is diverted due to constraints on labor, the need for storage, and economies of scale needed to sustain the recycling. This broken loop is particularly damaging as mining and coal plant residues form the base material for gypsum. Addressing this issue from multiple angles will reduce our reliance on a detrimental linear cycle of extraction, manufacturing, and disposal.
Materials for the Arts
Reuse
Material reinterpretation is increasingly a theme represented in art as sustainability grips the national discussion. From its warehouse in Queens, Materials for the Arts encourages the upcycling of materials and diverting surplus product by fostering relationships with end users in arts, culture and education communities, invoking the phrase that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. A complimentary exhibition at the Vanderbilt Republic poised the question: what is the future of circularity? The immersive mixed media installation challenged our understanding of consumerism and offered an optimistic challenge to innovators of any age. Sustainability can be celebrated through the arts by finding interdisciplinary companionship between industries.
Sims Municipal Recycling
Recycle
A pair of recycling facilities along Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront offers contrasting tales of material recycling yet the same call to action. Sims Municipal Recycling, in Sunset Park, sorts tons of metal, glass, and plastic from New York City’s curbside recycling program through rail and marine transfer links. Processing the largest volume in North America, the facility itself is a standout on the waterfront. Designed by Selldorf Architects, Sims features an education wing and elevated observation deck hosting schoolchildren weekly. The only operable Wind Turbine in the city marks the facility’s location and articulates its sustainable message.
Cooper Recycling Facility
Sorting only construction and demolition waste, the privately owned Cooper Recycling facility recycles 95% of incoming materials from its site off of Newtown Creek. Cooper Recycling is a member of US Green Building Council and the only facility in New York that is certified by the Recycling Certification Institute, which is an added bonus for project teams looking to achieve sustainability ratings and certifications. However despite the creekside location and adjacent rail line, the facility is fed by truck transport.
Both facilities touted their ability to sort for material, size, and even color through a series of automated processes but emphasized the changes in global trade that were curtailing their efforts. Of note, China’s decreased interest in paper and low-quality plastics has caused a spike in material headed to landfill. Both Sims and Cooper articulated a need to find a domestic audience that would utilize their products.
Q: How did you get involved with Boeddeker Park?
Jennifer: The Trust for Public Land’s mission is to create places that support healthy, livable communities for generations to come. In the Bay Area, our Parks for People program is working in underserved urban neighborhoods to help give everyone a vibrant, quality park within walking distance of their home. Boeddeker Park has been on our radar since about 2006. Over fifty thousand people live within a half-mile radius of the park, and over 10,000 of those are living below the poverty line. The need in the Tenderloin was so great, and the park had such potential to thrive.
We frequently partner with the Recreation and Parks Department, which manages over 4,000 acres of land, 34 recreation centers, nine swimming pools and is the City’s largest provider of the Trust for Public Land’s services. In 2007, we began a San Francisco initiative to rebuild three parks in high-need areas, catalyzed by the generosity of five lead donors: Banana Republic, Levi Strauss Foundation, McKesson, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and Wells Fargo. Working with the City, we leveraged their initial $5 million into $16.5 million of public and private funding. That money enabled us to work with Recreation and Parks to completely redesign and re-build three parks: Hayes Valley Playground (also with WRNS), Balboa Park, and Boeddeker Park. We knew from the start that Boeddeker would be the most complex.
Brian: As for WRNS, we had signed up with Public Architecture’s 1% pro bono program to provide design assistance to nonprofit organizations. The Trust for Public Land contacted us about helping with the design of Hayes Valley Playground. We donated a couple of phases of work, and then for the rest of that project, as was the case with Boeddeker Park, we essentially provided all of our work at cost, donating our overhead and profit.
Q: What were your impressions the first time you visited Boeddeker Park?
Brian: In the old park, you would walk down a main walkway, and it would feel like you were cut off from all the programmatic activities. There were raised benches and low walls on either side of that walkway that divided the green space, the basketball court, the playground. You had to walk around these walls to get into many of the spaces. So it took a lot of effort to participate in the park. And because the entry to the park was a good distance from the clubhouse, it was difficult for the recreation director to watch what was going on while running programs from the building. The building itself had a nice, voluminous space. But its walls had a sawtooth configuration that alternated solid walls with glass, cutting off sight lines, and the main level of the building was 4 feet underground, which further separated it from the park.
Previous Site Condition
Q: What was the community process for redesigning Boeddeker like?
Jennifer: We conducted extensive community outreach, holding public meetings and forums where everyone could come together to join in what we call ‘participatory design’. We invited people to the site and we also had focus groups at various places—youth centers, senior centers, churches—wherever local people were likely to come. Residents from the Tenderloin participated, as well as representatives of service organizations like the YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, Youth with a Mission, and City Academy. Key decisions were made at those community forums.
Brian: There is a lot of housing for seniors in the neighborhood. And the Tenderloin population has one of the highest percentages of children in San Francisco. But the kids and the families and the seniors weren’t using the park very much. We needed to create a space where adults could enjoy the park on their own or with children, while also making room for kids with their families or in groups. The park had to allow people of all ages to coexist at the same time, while also providing a safe space. This is the kind of issue that came out at the community meetings and informed our design response.
Q: What surprised you the most about what the community wanted?
Brian: The northern end in the existing park was a beautiful, quiet space in the middle of a busy urban area. I was surprised at the great reception from the community for nurturing that and keeping it as a quiet area for community gardening, senior activities, and adult fitness.
Jennifer: At one of the first meetings, a hand shot up and a participant asked, “Can we have solar panels on the roof? Can we be off the grid? Can we have a community garden?” I hadn’t expected that the principles of sustainability would have been such a priority.
Q: This was one of the first projects in the Sustainable SITES Initiative, is that correct?
Jennifer: That’s right. The park has pervious concrete and bioswales and a stormwater infiltration system under the lawn. The plant palette has a lot of California natives, which we’re excited about, because the Tenderloin has a lot of new immigrants to California. So the park gives them a little taste of California.
Brian: A signage program throughout the park indicates sustainable elements, and a key map at the front door to the clubhouse explains each element. The clubhouse is completely heated by a geothermal system—it’s one of the first public projects in San Francisco to implement geothermal. About eight cores under the basketball court go down about 200 feet, and they extract heat from the earth and transfer that into heating which feeds radiant tubing in the concrete slabs. The main spaces in the building have no air conditioning. The cathedral-like space in the main recreation room makes use of the stack effect to bring air through and up, so there’s no need for ceiling fans in that space. In the meeting room, we didn’t quite have that volume, but there are operable windows all around and a ceiling fan. Only a couple of offices have air conditioning.
Q: How did you address security concerns?
Brian: Security was a big issue. The community appreciated the idea of creating safety through transparency rather than through gates and enclosures and walls. Now, once you enter the park, you can access lots of different places from one point. You don’t have to go through a playground to get to the lawn, for example.
Jennifer: During a meeting with the Boys & Girls Club, we asked what would make the kids feel comfortable in the park, and one teenage boy said, “I want to know that I am seen by an adult when I come into the park.” We shifted the entry so that everyone has to walk right past the new clubhouse.
Brian: The old clubhouse was sunk four feet below grade, so rec directors couldn’t see from the building to the park. The new one is raised, and it’s all glass, so when people walk in, the recreation director is going to notice them. Elevating the clubhouse enables building program activities to be visible from the street, which promotes this as a safe center of the community. Also, we took down heavy, wrought iron fences and put in new, visually lighter fencing around the park. It’s still secure, but you can see through it.
Jennifer: From the very beginning of the project, we told the community, “Design is only going to be part of the solution.” The other part is going to be working together with the Recreation and Parks Department, with the police department, and with all of the different user groups to make sure that the operations, maintenance, stewardship, and programming are working together well. This park is going to be opening at a time in which the social fabric around it is a lot stronger and more cohesive than when we started design. Boeddeker is a place where different groups can unite. The park will have a lot more programming than it used to.
Brian: This kind of project doesn’t come up very often in historic urban neighborhoods that have a great need for open space. It is just a wonderful opportunity to make something better.
I was quite taken with 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, 1982-1986, Judd’s boxes in the artillery sheds at the Chinati. All 100 boxes have the same exact outer dimensions (41 x 51 x 72 inches), each with a unique interior. (You really have to look inside!). The Lippincott Company, a fine arts metal shop out of Connecticut, which has crafted large-scale sculptures and other pieces for the likes of Karel Appel, Keith Haring, Ellsworth Kelley, Sol LeWitt and Roy Lichtenstein, fabricated the works using Judd’s sketches.
My experience of Judd’s art, which he called “empiricism,” was, indeed, fully immersive and sensory, like when I’m in the throes of a good writing session. Wandering and imagining have led me to the nugget, the story, and the heightened moment is all there is. Walking through the boxes in the artillery sheds, peering into them, I become an actor in a three dimensional canvas of my own imagination — the perfect space of the shed, expansive yet contained, the sunlight from the windows warming and illuminating the aluminum boxes, my skin, the landscape and sky: all is one. I’m in the art.
The simple lines and geometries, the repetition and modularity, the seeming lack of content, the materials and craft, the light and shadow, the scale — they pull me in like good modern architecture, the Salk Institute, for instance, inviting me to imprint, to be imprinted. I stare into the boxes. Like the concrete boxes outside, there’s something elemental and haptic about them, first-building-blocks or primary structure, shelter, foundation, home. Their sameness and difference (like homes, people, sensations, feelings?) is compelling. There’s a beautiful chaos at the micro scale; my reflection is in there, moving, warped, multivalent. The landscape and the sky are in the boxes too. I am brought home to those streets whose names I never learned for lack of need — the eucalyptus, the oaks, those bends in the road and the dirt around them, and the sky framed just so, marking place and direction. I know every inch, my toes in the dirt, the canyons, hot and winding, they’re in those aluminum Judd boxes, memory from contour.
Art as Life
I can’t leave this piece without touching upon Judd’s living quarters, which revealed the pure doing that was his life and art. If permanent installation was what he wanted for his art, he took the notion a step further by living in a canvas of his own fabrication. La Mansana de Chinati, or “The Block,” is a full city block, former army buildings that Judd restored for studios, a library and his home, and which he surrounded with an adobe wall that shields the place from the immediacy of the interstate and railroad on either side. I had run my hands along the opaque wall while walking from the hotel into town, not knowing what it was but sensing something mysterious. Walking through the gate and into the interior courtyard, landscaped with pebbles, Judd’s sparse, rectilinear furniture, cacti and a pool he designed, I felt an overwhelming sense of quiet and calm, and that feeling, again, of having landed on another planet. Everything was symmetrical, the interiors (concrete, adobe, brick) sparse to the point of asceticism, the ornamentation and detail presumably derived from the life itself.
During our tour, the docent paused to let a train pass. We would not have been able to hear him otherwise. He said that the sound of trains in Marfa has always told the story of the American economy: loud with rail meant we were doing well, silence was an eerie telltale. The compound was filled with art, history, silence, rail, light, and shadow. I was staring into the pure form of a Judd box in a beautiful industrial space lit up by the large Texan sky, a train rumbling past. I felt wonder and curiosity, an impulse to make something. Staring into the pure form of a Judd box in an industrial building lit up from a ribbon window sun, a train rumbling past, I felt myself at some intersection of history and vision, in this place that is wild west, industry, war, art and fabrication, a unique combination distinctly Marfan.
Read “Art Mecca Step 1: Wander,” here
Read “Art Mecca Step 2: Imagine,” here
“When we look forward five, ten, or fifteen years, we ask ourselves who will carry the legacy of place-based, critical design forward. Our new leaders bring the kind of plurality of talents and interests that have always defined WRNS, whether it’s the ability to draw beautifully, curate place, advocate for equity, craft an exquisite building skin, or execute in a way that maintains design intent,” says founding partner, Bryan Shiles.
The three new partners are Lilian Asperin, Tim Morshead, and Russell Sherman. A leader within our higher education practice, Lilian was recently elected to a three-year term as the Society for College and University Planning’s Pacific Regional Council Chair. She is also a Board Director of AIA San Francisco and Co-Chair of the Equity by Design Committee. One of the studio’s lead designers, Tim Morshead’s portfolio includes an expansion to Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis Medical Center. Russell Sherman, who has been with WRNS since 2006, is recognized for his ability to steward projects through the most complex of processes, contributing greatly to the firm’s reputation for matching design excellence with hands-on, client-focused delivery. Sherman is responsible for two recent projects that auger in a more sustainable, publicly-engaged workplace experience for San Jose’s Santana Row.
Partners Tim Morshead, Lilian Asperin, and Russell Sherman
Moses Vaughan, Molly Thomas, and Stephen Kelley have been named senior associates, a new role within WRNS, created to expand our ability to serve clients, manage growth, and cultivate the next generation of firm leaders. Stephen helped start WRNS Studio’s New York office. His design portfolio includes the recently completed Collision Lab at Cornell Tech and numerous projects for Facebook and Microsoft. As our marketing and communications director, Molly Thomas has played a critical role in landing the firm’s most transformative projects, and she recently co-authored a research publication, Workplace + Public Realm. Moses Vaughan brings a particular focus on craft, having developed innovative building technologies for projects serving Adobe, UCSF, and Intuit.
Senior Associates Moses Vaughan and Molly Thomas
Senior Associate Stephen Kelley and Associate Dan Sakai
The twelve new associates include Daniel Johnson, Tim Jonas, Emily Jones, Jonas Kellner, Jon Kershner, Natalie Kittner, Crispin Lazarit, Eric Lilhanand, Ben Mikus, Dan Sakai, Hattie Stroud, and Lily Weeks.
“Our new associates are teaching, leading projects, mentoring staff, making our culture strong and fun, and introducing new tools, technologies, and ways of working. They elevate their peers and our leadership, bringing out the best in all of us,” says WRNS Studio partner Melinda Rosenberg. The new associates have been responsible for some of the firm’s most innovative projects, including the Dolby Headquarters Screening Room in San Francisco and Sonoma Academy’s AIA COTE award-winning Janet Durgin Guild & Commons.
Associates Daniel Johnson, Lily Weeks, Tim Jonas, Natalie Kittner, Jonas Kellner, Hattie Stroud, Ben Mickus, Emily Jones, Eric Lilhanand, and Crispin Lazarit
Associate Jon Kershner
Associates Hattie Stroud and Crispin Lazarit
Partner Lilian Asperin and Associate Hattie Stroud
Associates Lily Weeks and Emily Jones, Senior Associate Molly Thomas, and Associate Laura Stedman
Associates Daniel Johnson and Lily Weeks
Associates Jonas Kellner and Ben Mickus
Why did you decide to get licensed?
I’ve always known I wanted to get licensed. I decided I was going to be an architect, and that was just part of the process. Seriously, I must have decided to do it when I was 14. Now, after being in the industry for years, I know it opens doors. In a way, getting license is an exercise in self-betterment; you learn a lot during the study process.
What was the most interesting thing you learned?
Studying the AIA contracts was really helpful. It’s important to know how they outline the division of liability and responsibility between the owner, architect and contractor. The owner has a lot more responsibility than I thought. Knowing the legal side of things is empowering.
What study tactics worked best for you?
The David Doucette study materials help a lot. He has a 12 week, 6 days a week, hour a day study program that is ridiculously comprehensive. I didn’t follow that structure exactly, but the materials were great, and taking mock exams were useful. I must have taken a dozen.
My team member Mikki was also taking the test around the same time, and it was good to have someone to talk with about the process. I’m not big on studying in groups, but having someone to check in with meant we both had a little support system. I’d come in and ask, “Did you understand this or that?” and she’d do the same.
Has the process impacted your work in the studio?
The knowledge I gained along the way definitely informs my day-to-day work. It’s not a black and white thing; you learn it for years. I will say studying for the exam gives you a better understanding of the California process. It’s complicated, and there are a lot of agencies and laws to learn that apply directly to the work.
Any tips for folks just getting started?
Don’t rush it. Take your time, but also don’t procrastinate. After finishing the AREs pretty rapidly, I tried to keep up that pace with the CSE, but it’s much more difficult. Just remember that you need more time to prepare for the CSE.
What did you do afterwards?
I called my mom. After 10 years of working as a designer, I had a huge flood of emotions now that I could finally call myself an architect. It legitimized all of that effort. Seven years of school, four years of internship and seven national exams — licensure is the culmination of a lot of preparation and hard work.
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. A recent event in Honolulu commemorating this anniversary was attended by thousands of people, marching from the Hawaiʻian Royal Mausoleum (Mauna Ala) to the Iolani Palace, where Queen Liliʻuokalani — the Hawaiʻian Kingdom’s last reigning monarch — was forcibly removed from the throne.
Most Americans know Hawaiʻi as one of the planet’s great vacation spots, for its surfing, volcanoes, and Pearl Harbor. I can speak from personal experience that, at least via my own public school education, the version of Hawaiʻi’s history that I received was highly romanticized and biased, and as you can imagine, not in favor of native Hawaiʻians. I can vaguely remember back to 1959 when Hawaiʻi was admitted as our country’s 50th state. For many Americans it was cause for celebration and a statement of progress and great national optimism. But for others, not so much. There has lately been a concerted nationwide effort to revisit our history (not revise), to seek and recognize unbiased and unfiltered truth and in Hawaiʻi, this recognition has never been more evident.
Current anthropology points to the original settlement of the Hawaiʻian Islands by Polynesians from the South Pacific’s Marquesas Islands between 300 and 500 AD. A second wave of settlement followed between 900 and 1000 AD, this time from the Tahitian islands. Using their knowledge of the sea and the stars, the Tahitians navigated their double-hulled canoes some 3,500 miles north, landing first on the Big Island (the island of Hawaiʻi). These settlers came in waves, bringing most everything necessary for survival, including food crops and livestock — none of which were native to the Islands.
This community grew and flourished and by the time Europeans first made contact, the population was estimated between 800,000 to 1,000,000. Hawaiʻi was a completely self-sustaining, ecologically balanced community and by some accounts, one that enjoyed the highest standard of living of any human settlement on the planet. All of that began to change when the British Captain James Cook ran into the Islands during his third voyage to the Pacific. Commanding his sailing ships Resolution and Discovery, Cook first sighted the islands of Oʻahu, then Kauaʻi and Niʻihau and on January 20, 1778, landed in Waimea on the island of Kauaʻi. There are many accounts of ‘post-contact’ Hawaiʻian history, but I found Julia Flynn Siler’s book, Lost Kingdom, to be very clear, informative and most importantly, truthful.
Unlike many of its predecessors, Siler's book eschews the bias and historical perspective of Christian missionaries and their imperial counterparts to focus on the experience of native Hawaiʻians. Siting over 275 sources, Siler explores the degradation of Hawaiʻi's people, culture, and land, culminating in the forced abdication of Queen Liliʻuokalani's throne. For a good review / synopsis of the book, please find it here.
Queen Lili'uokalani
Formal annexation of sovereign territory happens and is internationally recognized through treaty, most often as a result of cessation of conflict (mostly armed). Not that all treaties are fair or are they honored — just look to many of those executed between Native American tribes and the US government — but a treaty between nations still represents an internationally recognized form of agreement and due-process. No such treaty was ever executed between Queen Liliʻuokalani, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the United States Government and thus, the status of Hawaiʻi is not entirely clear. A ruling coming out of an arbitrated case in the Hague’s International Court of Justice and its Permanent Court of explicitly recognizes the Hawaiʻian Kingdom as a State and the acting Government (the current State Government) as its representative, which is also recognition that the Hawaiʻian Kingdom was never formally annexed by the United States, but rather illegally occupied since the Spanish-American War in 1898. So what does this all mean? Well, according to this ruling and the legal minds associated with it, Hawaiʻi is an occupied territory and not really part of the United States.
The overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani and all that has transpired in Hawaiʻi since has, over time, precipitated many groups and movements that have advocated for a wide range of outcomes, from varying levels of Hawaiʻian sovereignty to outright succession from the Union. One of the current and very significant sovereignty movements is the Aloha ʻAina Party. This political party is working to assure social, economic, and environmental justice for the peoples of Hawaiʻi. Their foundational principles are expressed as follows and note, I’ve condensed and summarized:
Aloha ke Akua: acknowledgment of the existence of a higher, spiritual power, and the freedom for all to worship and seek guidance as their conscience moves them;
Aloha Kānaka: love for all the people, regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin;
Mālama ʻĀina: respect for the land and recognition that the relationship between the well-being of the land and the well-being of the people are inextricably linked;
Government Accountability and Transparency: strong belief that the government must truly be of the People, by the People, and for the People and must be transparent and accountable;
Hoʻoponopono: To make right what is wrong, specifically as related to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1893 – something that must be addressed and rectified.
The principle of Mālama ʻĀina is perhaps the one that most resonates with those of us at WRNS as we celebrate our five year anniversary in the State. One would think that by virtue of its geography, cultural history, and unique physical environment, Hawaiʻi would still — as it once was — be on the forefront when it comes to creating an environmentally sustainable community. Nothing, unfortunately, could be further from the truth.
Located almost in the center of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaiʻi is one of the most geographically isolated places on earth. Within 30 miles on the big island of Hawaiʻi alone, ecosystems range from marine coral reefs to snow-capped mountains. The world's wettest spot, Mt. Waialeale on the island of Kauai, receives over 430 inches of rain per year. Hundreds of different soil types are spread across the islands’ 6,400 square miles and the islands possess a combined 750-mile coastline — one almost as long as that of California. While this isolation has supported the evolution of diverse environments for flora and fauna found nowhere else on earth, it has also enabled a multitude of serious local environmental issues.
The most critical of these concern Hawaiʻi's unique biodiversity and the associated threats caused by introduced, invasive species. While Miconia weed, the coqui frog, and dengue fever spread by mosquitoes have received publicity most recently (and btw, mosquitos are not native to Hawaiʻi), they represent just a few of the thousands of species of animals, insects, plants, and organisms that have been introduced on the islands — many of which have turned invasive, wreaking environmental havoc. Unchecked and poorly planned development has caused the contamination of ground water with organic chemicals, and pollution of coastal waters with sediments and pathogens from both urban and agricultural runoff. The presence of numerous chemicals in active and former military sites represent an additional set of serious environmental challenges. The result of all this is Hawaiʻi’s dubious title as the "extinction capital of the world", with almost 40% of the endangered species in the United States being Hawai`ian species and nearly 75% of all U.S. extinctions occurring in Hawaiʻi. It is within this context that the Aloha ‘Aina Party is advancing the principle of Mālama ʻĀina as one of its key tenets. Mālama ʻĀina — respect for the land — has encouraged a wave of new thinking and activism as related to conservation, energy generation, energy consumption, waste and water management, and agricultural practice. All of it inspired by native Hawaiʻian tradition.
As WRNS celebrates our fifth year in Hawaiʻi, we draw inspiration from Mālama ʻĀina. One of the catalysts for opening a practice here, in addition to personal histories and connections, was our understanding of the State’s critical need for a higher level of sustainability-driven planning and design. We have witnessed in many of Hawaiʻi's residents, both native and local, a great desire to help redirect the state from a continued trajectory that could result, once again, in peril. Of course architecture is only one piece of the puzzle, but crafting buildings and environments that help solve contemporary problems — in ways that are respectful and authentic to the islands’ environment and cultural history — is fundamental to our approach. And we’ve found great need for more of it.
We arrived on-island at an interesting time, as the political will of the people and institutions were beginning to mount a serious campaign to create a place that can be an inspiration and example to the rest of the world. By virtue of its unique geography and cultural history, Hawaiʻi is, in a sense, the ‘canary in the coal mine’ as it relates to the rest of the planet (that is, how Hawaiʻi goes, so goes the planet). Based on our relationships, our point-of-view and our experience, Hawaiʻi represented a natural opportunity in which to participate in the discussions shaping Hawaiʻi's future.
We have been honored to be a part of the following projects:
Planning for cultural gardens at Kamehameha Schools;
Sustainability Advisors to the State Department of Education (DOE);
Development of an Infrastructure Master Plan for the University of Hawaiʻi’s Manoa Campus (a framework to meet net-zero energy and water goals and a plan for resiliency);
Designers for the conversion of a historic UH Manoa gymnasium into one of the campus’ first net-zero buildings;
Developing a master plan for the Kuhio Park public housing community (creating a place of dignity for Pacific Islanders displaced by the US Governments atomic testing in Micronesia);
Designers for a green, high-rise urban school (Pohukaina) that will help create community in a new high-density urban development;
Designers for a high-rise, senior housing and community center project to help fill the acute need for affordable housing for a poorly served population.
In various ways, these projects strive to support the precepts of Mālama ʻĀina as well as Hoʻoponopono — to help right what is wrong. We didn’t come to Hawaiʻi to design buildings that could be anywhere. We came to apply the best of our thinking to help right the ways in which Hawai’I has been wronged — at least as related to planning and design. While the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi represented the end of what was — at one time — a self-sufficient, self-reliant, sustainable community, the event’s 125th anniversary represents somewhat of a re-birth of the notion that Hawaiʻi can and should get back on the path leading to what it once was. WRNS, by virtue of our point-of-view, experience, and deep relationship with Hawaiʻi, hopes to humbly assist.
As Hawaiʻi goes, so goes the Earth: The Hawaiʻian islands as seen from the International Space Station on January 18, 2014; source.
Please refer to the link http://www.hsso.org/kd/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Hawaii-Invasive-Species-Official-List-%E2%80%93-2017-rev2.pdf for a list of Official Hawaiʻi Invasive Species. Note that there is a distinction between "introduced" and "invasive." There are many more species than listed here that have been "introduced" in Hawaiʻi (e.g. the pineapple), but left to their own devices they won't become environmentally "invasive." That is, they cannot exist untended in the wild and thus, present minimum environmental risk. However — and specifically in the case of the pineapple — it could be argued that its introduction as a major agricultural crop was highly invasive and destructive from an environmental, social, and cultural perspective.
“FREESPACE encourages reviewing ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world, of inventing solutions where architecture provides for the well-being and dignity of each citizen of this fragile planet.” – Biennale Architettura 2018
This past July, I spent three days exploring the Venice Biennale, or La Biennale Architettura as it is officially called. For nearly six months, 63 participating countries and over 70 individual architects from around the world come together for perhaps one of the most important platforms for dialog between architects and between architects and the public. With their prompt of “Freespace,” the curators of the 2018 exhibition Yvonne Farrell and Shelly McNamara, founding directors of Grafton Architects based in Dublin Ireland, have chosen design content which “celebrates architecture’s capacity to find unexpected generosity in each project.” They have highlighted projects with an almost primal focus on the quality of space itself. The exhibition emphasizes the “free” gifts of light, air, gravity and materials masterfully put into play in the commercially restrictive environment in which architecture is often created.
Map of La Biennale di Venezia
The exhibition expands beyond the boundaries of any single venue to create the feeling of being coterminous with the city of Venice. Installations are sprinkled across the city; often encountered by surprise as guerilla pop-ups of architectural delight. The individual entries, likewise, broaden the definition of an exhibit to include much more than just content on display. As a point of entry into the comprehensive nature of the Biennale, it is worth pointing out some of the creative and unexpected approaches to each aspect of an exhibit: the venue housing a particular exhibit, the manifesto describing the intent, the techniques used to create the display, and of course the actual content on display. Let me explain with some memorable examples.
“Island” at the British Pavilion
VENUE
It is a special case when a participant can critique or even provide an alternative to the site they are given for their entry into the exhibition. The British Pavilion took this route with one of several early 20th century buildings purpose-built for Biennale events in the Giardini. The entire building interior was left intentionally empty—completely untouched with even some visible residue from previous British exhibitions. Instead, a massive scaffolding wraps around and over the roof, containing a stair and elevator to direct visitors up to the roof. The installation called “Island” is designed by architecture firm Caruso St. John and Marcus Taylor to provide a place of both refuge and exile, inspired in no small way by Brexit and the impending exit from the European Union. The wooden platform viscerally connects with the city of Venice providing nearly 360-degree views. The platform also doubled as an event space, holding various performances, lectures, and events.
The Pavilion of the Holy See
Another radical take on venue was the Vatican, whose inaugural and ambitious entry commissioned 10 world-renowned architects (including two Pritzker Prize winners) each to design a unique chapel in a wooded forest on San Giorgio Maggiore Island, across the lagoon from Piazza San Marco. The number 10 came from the ten commandments, while the architectural brief was to create a new interpretation of Gunnar Asplund’s 1920 Woodland Chapel design. Exploring this single entry became a small journey in itself, first to find the somewhat hidden forest and then to follow the route through the forest to visit each structure.
“Free Space: The Value of What’s Not Built” by ELEMENTAL
MANIFESTO
Far from letting an installation speak for itself, many participants provided some sort of written document to explain or propagandize their purpose. These documents varied widely throughout the exhibition from whimsical newspapers and postcards, to posters glued on walls, reminiscent of rock concert or political advertisements. Several followed a more traditional brochure format, but there is nearly as much to read as there was to see. Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena’s manifesto stood apart as a concise and witty explanation of his approach to engaging communities into the architectural process, and why it benefits our profession overall.
“Unbuilding Walls” at the German Pavillion
DISPLAY
The Biennale’s theme of “Freespace” encouraged each participant to approach their entry as a one-stop exhibition unto itself. For the German Pavilion, human rights activist Marianne Birthler led a curatorial and design team to create “Unbuilding Walls,” a stark, black wall viewed straight-on upon entry into their pavilion. However when stepping to either side, the viewer realizes it isn’t an impenetrable surface but rather an optical illusion of multiple vertical panels offset from each other executed with perspectival accuracy to cleverly conceal individual exhibits on the opposite side.
Display by Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos
The Spanish firm Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos crafted layered section models as the pedestals to display a selection of physical models of public buildings. The voids carved out of the solid boards aimed to demonstrate a type of “convex” space, viewed from the outside as defined by light and air.
Weaving Architecture by Benedetta Tagliabue
Benedetta Tagliabue, another Spanish architect, playfully displayed their architectural ideas on fabric pillows casually strewn across the floor. Meanwhile, VTN Architects from Vietnam built a stunning bamboo shade structure midway between exhibits in the Arsenale. Refreshingly placed along a calm lagoon in the center of the former 12th century naval shipyard, the shade provided a pleasant respite to recharge before the next segment of the exhibition.
The Arsenale
CONTENT
As I explored the distinct zones of the Biennale, the brackets of conceptual thought were set wider apart than anything I had experienced. Perhaps this was the intent of “Freespace” as a prompt: to encourage an open and unconfined exploration of architectural thought. Also, the Biennale did not group the exhibits by anything other than the participating country or participating architect’s name. But I did notice some recurring themes and trends that can be drawn out of the massive installation. Some of the most memorable and well-executed entries fell into the categories of transportation, urban futures, sustainability, experiential/immersive displays, explorations of craft, and of course individual building types.
“Station Russia” at the Russian Pavillion
TRANSPORTATION: The Russian Pavilion considered the possibilities of how space might be freed up at the center of cities if railway stations are no longer needed. A series of plaster cast models of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kaliningrad show dramatic voids where the main railway station has been removed creating literal “freespace” for new architectural possibilities on the empty lots.
Virgin hyperloop one by BIG, Part of “Possible Spaces – Sustainable Development Through Collaborative Innovations” at the Danish Pavilion
The Danish Pavilion included one exhibit by BIG partnered with Virgin to explain the Hyperloop One concept. Taking Elon Musk’s idea of a passenger pod pushed by pressurized air in a sealed tube, BIG conceptualized a new global transportation network, including ideas for stations, and the transport pods themselves. Virgin began testing the concept in 2016 in the Nevada desert. Virgin and BIG pointed out the serial disruptions of the transportation industry of centuries past, alluding to the hyperloop as the next imminent transportation revolution. Maybe.
“The City of Radical Shift” at the Korean Pavilion
URBAN FUTURES: Many participating architects and countries took on the question of what becomes of our cities in the near future. The Korean Pavilion held a competition to reconsider the 1960’s Sewoon Sangga complex, a shopping, residential, and industrial mega structure at the heart of Seoul. It has been called the first mixed-use building in Korea. The winning entry by Sungwoo Kim of N.E.E.D Architecture acknowledged the value of the cluster of resources and infrastructure in a city center, while reconceptualizing the complex to add more visual openness, public space, and connections to the landscape. The thesis of the design is to strike a better balance between public and private development interests while maintaining the vitality of downtown areas which have often succumbed to overbuilding by private sector companies. The series of models, drawings, and diagrams made a compelling case.
The entry by Saudi Arabia, designed by local firm Bricklab, offered a simplified, but equally compelling case to think about our urban future through a series of time-lapse-animated line drawings. Each drawing showed an abstracted street map of a different Saudi city, starting from the earliest record of developed roads and extending year-by-year to the present day. The illustration of massive urban growth and the different models of urban organization, even within a single country, was powerfully clear.
“Repair” at the Australian Pavilion
SUSTAINABILITY: The Australian Pavilion, titled “Repair,” focused on the critical role of architecture to utilize and deploy ecological systems. Taking the focus away from architecture as object and replacing it with operational context, Australian artist Linda Tegg partnered with Baracco+Wright Architects to install a living grassland within the pavilion building. While the sensory impact of walking into this room—especially the refreshing smells of nature—are hard to translate into words, the message was clear: architecture has an important role in the environmental, social, and cultural repair of the places it is a part of.
“Archipelago Italia” at the Italian Pavilion
The Italian Pavilion, curated by Mario Cucinella Architects, is titled “Archipelago Italia.” It focused on the spaces in between its urban areas as its most important cultural resource and its differentiating feature as a nation. The comprehensive survey of the Italian landscape encompassed several rooms within the Arsenale. (Apparently the host country gets a little extra space to work with) The idea that landscape becomes its own island in between the cities was illustrated with gradated maps of each territory. While public / private boundaries in cities are often rigid, the exhibition called out the natural features and moments in the countryside when the public and private boundaries are blurred or entirely absent.
“Another Generosity” at the Nordic Pavilion
EXPERIENTIAL/IMMERSIVE: While many pavilions provided evocative content to look at, some went even further to provide an experience that visitors could literally step into and through. The Nordic Pavilion, representing Norway, Sweden, and Finland, also focused on the concept of sustainability but executed their ideas with a group of inflatable structures large enough to walk into. Juulia Kaste, the director of the Finnish Museum of Architecture led a design team including Lunden Architecture Company, Buro Happold Engineering, and Pneumocell Fabrication. They illustrate the connection between air and water, the two elements which mediate between the natural and built environment. As the temperature and humidity change inside and outside of each cellular structure the structure itself expands and relaxes in a constantly changing balance. The effect felt like a living organism “breathing” all around you. The intent was to show how architecture can facilitate a symbiotic relationship between nature and the built environment.
“Cloud Pergola” at the Croatian Pavilion
The Croatian Pavilion combined visual, aural, and experiential elements with their “Cloud Pergola.” The installation had three interwoven parts. Alisa Andrašek, in collaboration with Bruno Juričić, created a “spatial drawing” of thousands of 3D-printed segments forming a cloud-shaped structure resting on three expansive legs. Under the pergola, Vlatka Horvat utilizes bare feet on paper to develop an abstract commentary on the idea of movement and journey. At the same time a sound installation by Maja Kuzmanović creates the ambiance of convivial gatherings under a pergola. In all the installation was an impressive multi-sensory experience.
“House Tour” at the Swiss Pavilion
The Swiss Pavilion was conceived by a design team including Alessandro Bosshard, Li Tavor, Matthew van der Ploeg and Ani Vihervaara. In a playful surprise, they created a house tour where all elements found in the typical swiss home (beautifully minimalist is de rigeur) were dramatically enlarged in scale. Even the door handles.
L-R: “Unveil the Hidden” by Maruša Zorec of Arrea Architecture; “Z33 House for Contemporary Art” by Francesca Torzo Architetto; Chile Pavilion curated by Alejandra Celedon
EXPLORATIONS OF CRAFT: Walking through the Arsenale, many of the entries by individual architects and participating nations showcased exquisite craft through different media and techniques used to create the architectural models on display. Maruša Zorec of Arrea Architecture in Slovenia built a brick screen leading into a series of vertical panels where the floor plans of her selected buildings were executed in plaster bas relief. Francesca Torzo Architetto of Italy fused her passion for materiality and model-making with a physical model of a house for contemporary art in Belgium. In the model, the walls are woven from different colored yarn allowing the entire composition to read as a cohesive whole. Her intent was a choreography of spatial sequences moving through the building. The pavilion of Chile included a concrete cast of their national stadium filled with the layouts of shantytowns instead of bleachers. The intent was to tell a double story through a single medium. The stadium was the location of a 1979 operation where ownership was provided to tens of thousands of city dwellers living in fear of constant relocation. The event provided more stability to these city dwellers while acknowledging the close proximity and dissimilar conditions that often coexist in cities. In the medium of architectural model making, the two ideas come together.
“Together and Apart: 100 Years of Living” at the Latvian Pavilion
BUILDING TYPOLOGIES: One final theme which appeared in several forms throughout the Biennale was building type studies. Libraries, stadiums, train stations and other building types were explored by different participants throughout the exhibition. The Latvia pavilion, curated by Matiss Groskaufmanis, stood apart with a comprehensive commentary on apartment building design and policy in their country since its independence from the USSR in the 90’s. Two-thirds of the Latvian population resides in apartments, making it the highest ratio in Europe and also a way of life for much of the country. The exhibition examined the political, architectural and technical aspects of different housing solutions that have been tested and deployed over the years. Diagrams illustrated the sometimes convoluted design/construction process and the dire statistics of failed mortgages in recent years while evocative physical models illustrated more technical issues such as maintaining warmth in an often cold country.
In summary, the Biennale was an inspiring roller-coaster ride of architectural possibilities at all scales. The emphasis on holistic thinking is something I connected with personally and have participated in frequently while at WRNS Studio. No matter what the project requirements, schedule, budget, and program demand of us we always take time to investigate deeper and question the spatial problems to reveal the embodied power of architecture and make a visceral connection to a place. The architects’ work on display demonstrate a masterful facility to explain complicated ideas in an original medium. I am proud to be a part of this rich and inventive discipline called architecture.
Melinda in the boxes. Photo by Molly Thomas.
Associates Lily Weeks and Emily Jones, Senior Associate Molly Thomas, and Associate Laura Stedman
Associates Daniel Johnson and Lily Weeks
As Hawai
