I spent the summer of 1994 studying the delicate protein folds of a little virus called P22 in a refrigerated laboratory in Massachusetts. After a miserable day in the cold room, I would spend my evenings walking around the humid streets of Boston and marveling at a built environment that was about as different as could be from the urban fringes of LA where I had grown up. By the end of that summer, my interest in microscopic protein had been eclipsed by the textures of Sever Hall, the hush of Pinckney Street, and the shape-shifting simplicity of the Hancock Tower.
What's your approach to architecture?
Multivalent. I tend to triangulate design problems in a way that is almost clinically straight-forward — listing out all the criteria for success, iterating design concepts, and testing those concepts against the criteria. I say “almost” because the criteria can range from highly objective (cost per square foot, FAR, net-zero water use) to totally subjective (“lightness,” “fun,” “views to the sky”). What matters is, first, that these criteria are meaningful to our clients and to the larger community, and second, that we satisfy the criteria in a way that is elegant, timeless, and seemingly effortless.
What are you excited about in architecture right now?
All the latent design possibilities of emerging construction technologies such as cross-laminated timber, hybrid rammed earth, and 3D-printed concrete are exciting to me in that they fuse analog and digital approaches to craft. These technologies help compress the distance between architect and builder. Similarly, the use of tactile regionally-specific materials and building processes can help us engage more directly with the work we do and the places we make.
I remain excited about hand drawing and physical modelling. We do our best work when we can collaborate in a direct and visceral way during the design process. At the same time, I am excited about the coming shift to an all-digital workflow for design review and construction. Plan checkers, field inspectors, general contractors and the construction trades will very soon be working off the same 3D computer model. Apart from saving reams of paper, this will simplify communication and streamline pre-construction.
How do you hope to make an impact at WRNS in your new role?
I want to foster a scalable studio culture that can grow as the firm grows and keep that special sauce that makes WRNS, well WRNS. That means putting design first. That means promoting innovation around both project design and project delivery. And that means approaching every problem from the standpoint of a novice: with an open mind and critical eye.
What do you want to teach the next generation of WRNSers?
We are at a moment of generational transition: from architects trained to draw by hand to modeling exclusively on a computer; from an enmeshed ownership economy to spawning a sharing economy; from valuing individualism and status (the age of the “starchitect”) to authenticity and connectedness becoming design bellwethers. I think the next generation of WRNSers has much to teach the firm.
As one of the younger partners at WRNS, I hope to be a transitional figure, building bridges between these groups to keep us moving forward.
New Partners Tim Morshead, Russell Sherman, and Lilian Asperin
Lightweight, Green, Efficient
Residing somewhere between stucco and French limestone there’s Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC), a building material typically associated with suburban office parks, less with distinguished architectural design. Yet, working with GFRC on several projects in recent years has helped us innovate, using common panelized materials while still addressing issues of scale, texture, rhythm, and even transparency and solar exposure. Produced with far less concrete than cast-in-place, or even pre-cast panels, GFRC is lightweight, cost-effective, and green.
UCSF Mission Hall Global Health Sciences Building
This 266,000 square foot project was initially a design competition requiring an early team commitment of Architects, Engineering Consultants, Contractor and sub-contractors to collaborate from day one to evolve the highest value solution, which was then delivered as a Guaranteed Maximum Price offering to the client. Working together, our team adopted construction strategies and committed to particular forms, materials, and fabrication techniques, inventing the production process alongside the design. Thanks to the early involvement of the builders and manufacturers, technological exploration and innovation became integral to the design vision.
Wanting to avoid a static or gridlocked aesthetic, we adopted a shifting-panel strategy likened to industrial metal mesh. Mission Hall’s skin required a variety of aperture densities and relationships, but it couldn’t be too complex given budget constraints and the need to limit panel types. Given our overall budget goals, we knew we would need large, repeating panel shapes and that the lightness of GFRC would be the most practical way to get there.
Past experience at smaller scales had shown that a material as prosaic as GFRC could be transformed into a cost-effective yet poetic signature feature; however, we had not yet found a way to dematerialize its basic wall-like nature. At UCSF, we wanted to re-invent GFRC as a trabeated wall assembly (column and lintel), not as a masonry wall with punched openings. Our partners, Walters & Wolf, helped us achieve this with a window-box truss system incorporating metal spandrel panels, allowing us to imply a much more open mesh framework than a strictly budget-driven panel wall would have allowed.
Panelization requirements led to a long truss (32” x 30 ft), which accommodated all four curtain wall versions, and streamlined both fabrication and erection. Built off-site, these panels amounted to significant savings for the client. The solution creates interest along the facades while still allowing for flexible and myriad programmatic options within. Because the South and West sides of the building experience stronger sunlight, we tightened the apertures to reduce heat gain, while the North side opened up more to admit diffused light and provide views toward Downtown San Francisco.
How We Got There
Specific patterns, textures, and materials were sampled, developed, and tested in mock-up form to nurture and test our ideas both before and during the production process. Darker Precast Concrete at the building base level along with typical off-white GFRC wall material mockups are shown above.
GFRC pilasters were presented in smooth and wash-board-shadow, and the proportions of specific wall fragments and adjacent window voids were adjusted for solar exposure, spatial and technical reasons, as well as façade-making.
Well ahead of production, we were making careful studies of texture and scale, guided by practical input from the designated panel manufacturers, to confirm we had it right prior to mock-up and production. The resulting panels vary between smooth and wash-board texture to provide shadow, scale, and variability. The light color of the GRFC also provides a contrast to the darker concrete at the base level. The GRFC appears as though it is a framework floating above the darker glass and metal elements underneath, creating the building’s outer “mesh” expression.
Working within parameters of efficient glass size, pushing limits of texture and relief, we arrived at a highly animated open-weave expression, completely free of panelized punched-wall expression with a limited amount of actual panel variation. Compositionally, every effort was made to view simple things in complex ways, to produce more visual interest through proportion, offsets of panels, mirror-reversals local adjacencies, and interrelationship of basic elements. Our tools were limited, but by careful composition, the solution rejects the grid-locked and static pitfalls typical of GFRC panel walls.
Where We’re Coming From
A core tenet of our approach is to tease the poetry out of the practical: to find ways to make an office building (or even a parking garage) beautiful and simple; elegant and functional; practical yet fresh, while improving our everyday experiences. Even the most seemingly mundane materials can be reinterpreted and optimized to provide an articulate and coherent architectural expression. We see something like GFRC not so much as a “budget material” but as the lighter side of concrete.
WRNS defines its work as being about beauty, sustainability, and the public realm. What do these concepts mean to you?
Daniel Johnson: In my opinion, architecture is useless without people, and for me, architecture that extends its experience to the public realm is probably one of the most exciting potential offerings of architecture. Buildings that are primarily private almost seem like giant rocks in a stream redirecting the flow of water, whereas publicly infused architecture is more akin to bridge, and I would prefer to build bridges versus dams. Metaphors aside, some of my favorite works of architecture have incredible public experiences – the modern entry plaza to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid by Jean Nouvel had a profound impact on my understanding of the power of architecture and the public realm. Not only did the architecture create an interesting relationship to the historical building it was attached to but the way Nouvel created drama from the sky to the plaza was a magical experience that opened my eyes to how architecture not only shelters and defines space, but creates phenomenal connections between earth and sky. When you mix in a flowing stream of people into an experience like architectural value becomes truly evident.
Emily Jones: Beauty, to me, is a moment (usually fleeting) that is prompted by an experience of place. As an observer and a designer, I seek to both experience and create beauty; however, I have found that, in attempting to create beauty through architecture, it is essential to acknowledge and utilize the beauty found in nature. Therefore, for me, architectural beauty is a deliberate and skillful composition of natural elements of beauty translated through design that, when successful, evokes a visceral experience of place. Consequently, for me, beauty and sustainability are inextricably linked as sustainable design strives to preserve what, to me, is an essential element of beautiful design – nature.
Ben Mickus: While all buildings occupy a space necessarily, it is the interaction of a building with the surrounding space that transforms into place. This is what excites me about architecture: a building and the space around it fusing into something more than any of the constituent parts, and becoming a piece of the ever-changing public realm. While the public realm as an abstract concept is fluid, dynamic and buzzing with energy, it is architecture in the public realm that somehow channels that energy, allowing it to be experienced through the creation of views, moments, sequences, tactile interactions, and relations to context. We create a unique experience of a place.
What do you think makes a good leader?
Dan Sakai: I have a toddler who likes to lead me around. Her inclinations rarely coincide with the rest of the family’s, but she enjoys a song called Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes – you may know it – which provides a useful mnemonic for leadership in grown-up organizations.
Head: Clear thinking leads to insight and level headed decisions.
Shoulders: Sharing the load inspires and builds team cohesion.
Knees and toes: Dynamism requires nimble responses and flexibility to address changing markets and individual project and team needs.
The verse repeats and the children touch the different body parts as they sing along. Then there is a bridge including:
Eyes: Vision requires a long view and hawk-eyes for shortcomings and opportunities.
Ears and Mouth: A strong communicator is both articulate and a good listener.
Nose: Integrity is crucial; when something fails the smell test, action is taken.
I am not suggesting adults need to be able to touch their toes, but leadership touchstones are central to effective, inspirational organizations. Getting my daughter pointed in the right direction is another matter.
What drew you to WRNS when you first came? What made you want to stay?
Daniel Johnson: It sounds obvious, but the work is what drew me to WRNS. There was a clear point of view – architecture that was tuned to its context, composed thoughtfully, and used materials in ways that were modern and sophisticated. Additionally I was very impressed and intrigued by the fact that WRNS grew the practice through a terrible recession, and some great work came out of that period of time, which to me signaled that this was a company that knew how to run a successful business, a trait I was very interested in learning. What makes me stay is all of the above but with an added layer, the staff and leadership is incredible. I feel like I can be myself here, and I am surrounded by a bunch of really smart, creative, interesting and idiosyncratic people who have given so much to my professional and personal life. As much as they are my colleagues they are (for better or worse) becoming my family.
Lily Weeks: The work at WRNS is what drew me first. I wanted to be a part of the growing interior design practice in an architecture firm, after all, my education is in architecture and my experience in interior design – it was a great fit for me. What made me stay was the studio environment that I can only describe as a rigorous creative hive with some of the most talented people you will meet, what else could I ask for?
What are you excited about in architecture right now?
Hattie Stroud: The way in which social responsibility is becoming an important part of practice is really great. I’m a big fan of offices like MASS Design Group that really champion the ways design can be beautiful but also smart, sustainable, and supportive of its community. This isn’t about community process dictating a design – it’s about architecture that is responsive to its context.
Where do you see WRNS in the next five years? How do you want to see us grow?
Ben Mickus: As WRNS grows, the design profile of the firm–as defined by the caliber of projects we pursue–should grow with it. The diversity of projects in the office has been so strong since the inception of WRNS, and I hope it will continue to be a defining strength, as we deepen our experience across so many practice areas.
What are your inspirations outside of architecture?
Dan Sakai: Autonomous vehicles are super-exciting. As economies of scale incentivise ride-sharing over personal vehicle ownership, tremendous amounts of land currently used to store empty cars may become available in places we care about: along our streets, on the ground immediately surrounding many destinations, and in robust structures in high land-value areas. Extensive use of ride-shared autonomous vehicles may actually align incentives for congestion pricing, change commute patterns and public transit paradigms and radically shift development and planning patterns (for better or worse). There is a lot at stake for urban communities and the environment.
Lily Weeks: Art & fashion. Every morning I walk to work, 30 minutes downhill – I walk past the merchandise displays of Prada, Valentino, Dior & Britex Fabrics. These brief but constant glimpses of human centered design, textiles, and pattern play give me my first creative jump start to the day. In moments of creative daze I have taken a short respite to SFMOMA, just a few blocks from the office, to visit a favorite piece, wander a new exhibit or sit & reflect on a balcony.
It was critical to get visitors thinking about what they’d seen and experienced, as the stakes were high for Alaska in 1974 and supportive voices needed to be heard. The construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline project — an 800-mile oil pipeline and road connecting the north slope of the Brooks Range at the Beaufort Sea (Arctic Ocean) to the Port of Valdez in southeast Alaska — was commencing and would bisect and make accessible what was then one of the largest road-less, untouched tracts of wilderness existing anywhere on earth. Native American groups in Alaska, mindful of the horrific experiences of Native Americans in the “lower 48” and determined not to see it repeated, had fortunately attained at least some political power in Alaska and worked hard to protect their ancestral lands and their communities. As well, the environmental movement was going strong and conservation organizations – adamantly opposed to the pipeline – sought concessions to make up for their stinging pipeline defeat. Shockingly, and in an atypically bi-partisan fashion, something amazing came out of all this.
If the creation of National Parks was America’s best idea, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) was a close second. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed into law one of the most sweeping conservation acts in our country’s history, designating certain public lands in Alaska as units of the National Park, National Wildlife Refuge, Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Wilderness Preservation, and National Forest Systems, resulting in a once-in-a-generation expansion of all of these systems. The consequences of this act were profound on many levels. For the then Mt. McKinley National Park, the change was so much more than in name only. Renamed ‘Denali National Park and Preserve,’ the Park expanded from 2 million to 6 million acres (a million acres is roughly 40 miles square). Many other new areas received various levels of protection, including other new and expanded National Parks. Also notable was the establishment of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.
Gates of the Arctic is the northernmost National Park in the U.S. (the entirety of the Park lies north of the Arctic Circle) and the second largest at over 8.4 million acres, slightly larger in area than Maryland. The Park consists primarily of portions of the Brooks Range, the planet’s northernmost, contiguous mountain range. Most of the Park is protected in the area demarked as the ‘Gates of the Arctic Wilderness,’ which covers over 7.2 million acres (no roads, no pathways, and no trails other than those established by caribou). This area adjoins the Noatak Wilderness Area and together, they form the largest contiguous wilderness area in the United States. The Western Arctic caribou herd and other herds, collectively totaling over 500,000 animals, move through the Gates of the Arctic during their yearly migrations. I had been fortunate to get a bird’s eye view of the Park’s eastern boundary, flying over the Brooks Range while travelling back and forth from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay (after my first season in Denali, I went on to work on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline project as an environmental quality control engineer, monitoring the contractors’ adherence to environmental constraints established as conditions of its construction – yet another story).
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“There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness.
In a civilization which requires most lives to be passed amid inordinate dissonance, pressure and intrusion, the chance of retiring now and then to the quietude and privacy of sylvan haunts becomes for some people a psychic necessity.
The preservation of a few samples of undeveloped territory is one of the most clamant issues before us today. Just a few more years of hesitation and the only trace of that wilderness which has exerted such a fundamental influence in molding American character will lie in the musty pages of pioneer books …To avoid this catastrophe demands immediate action.”
Robert (Bob) Marshall Co-founder, The Wilderness Society
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There exists a significant body of literature in support of the protection of our National Parks and our remaining wilderness areas written with great eloquence. Consequently, I won’t attempt to describe the critical importance of preserving a place where the water in its streams and lakes is fresh and drinkable, where no animal or plant species is threatened or endangered, where one can step lightly on a square foot of ground and have some reason to believe that yours may be the first human footsteps there, where you can get lost and maybe, not be found. Even if one never has an opportunity to visit such a place, the knowledge that it exists can be refreshing to the spirit and can provide for hope and optimism when bogged down by the constant demands and responsibilities of one’s daily life. These places do still exist and as evidenced by Denali and Gates of the Arctic National Parks, they exist in more than our imaginations alone.
Unfortunately, it’s no secret that our nation’s parks, preserves, refuges, and wilderness areas are under constant siege, whether from overuse, neglect, lack of resources, the desire of some to “unlock” and open to potentially destructive uses and now of course, population pressures and attendant climate change. As isolated as Alaska is and as severe as its climate can be, the wilderness still invites unwanted attention. Construction of a new road through the Gates of the Arctic is now being contemplated by the State of Alaska, proposed to link the Dalton Highway (the pipeline service road constructed in 1974) with the Ambler Mining District to its west. To the east of the Gates, Sarah Palin’s call to “drill baby, drill” — a philosophy wholeheartedly adopted by our current administration — represents a recent, direct, and specific threat to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the nation’s largest wildlife refuge at close to 20 million acres. And that’s just arctic Alaska. There are many more areas at risk throughout our country (perfect example – recent action regarding the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah) and of course, in our own back yards.
Fortunately, as architects and designers, we are practitioners of a craft that through our daily actions, serves to lessen our collective environmental impact. By extension, the choices we make and the actions we take help protect our remaining wilderness by reducing pressure to consume what remains of our natural resources – most of which always seem to reside in or adjacent to these very fragile, very precious places. It’s important for us to always know that our efforts to create sustainable environments have a direct impact on their future, so when in the midst of a struggle on a sustainability-related issue with a colleague, client, or contractor, take heart, as the struggle is more than worth it.
Even more fortunate, none of us here in the Bay Area have to go far to experience and even more directly support protection of our wild places. Thanks to an act by Richard Nixon, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) was established in 1972. Anchored by the Presidio and the open spaces flanking the Golden Gate Bridge, the GGNRA, at over 80,000 acres, is one of the largest urban National Parks on the planet. Even as the most visited of the National Parks (15,000,000 visitors per year as opposed to less than 10,000 at the Gates of the Arctic), its breadth and diversity allow for multiple uses and a variety of experiences, even including the opportunity for solitude and a touch of wilderness in the midst of our densely populated urban landscape. With support from other privately-funded organizations like the Presidio Trust and The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, it is also one of the best-managed, best funded units of the National Park System. We are profoundly lucky to have such an asset adjacent to where many of us live and all of us work.
We should all be in awe that a society so enamored with its manifest destiny and bent on expressing to the world its exceptionalism could have mustered enough collective wisdom to preserve such places as National Parks and wilderness areas for future generations. Quite a miracle. But even in the rarified air of our exceptionally progressive circles, there seems only a weak connection between sustainability and the conservation movement as we in this country used to know it. As architects, we’re well versed around the technologies, metrics, and goals around creating sustainable buildings and environments, but the connection between that knowledge and its relationship to the preservation of what remains of the natural world feels a bit less clear, less immediate. Recent experiences have reminded me that the need to strengthen this connection is indeed immediate; our few remaining wild places are as fragile as ever, are all under assault, and require our collective, constant attention and action in order that they remain protected.
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“I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving”
Edward Abbey
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Epilogue
This past August my wife Ellen and I headed north to the Gates, our first time back to Alaska in over 25 years. With five other travelers and two guides, we shared a one-and-a-half hour bush plane flight from Fairbanks to the “town” of Bettles (2010 population = 12) and then another one-and-a-half hour bush plane ride further north to our base camp site at Folly Lake (via a 60-year old De Havilland Otter, outfitted with floats). It was one of the most spectacular flights we’ve ever taken to one of the most spectacular sites we’ve ever visited. After dropping us off, the pilot taxied around the lake to gain position, took off, and disappeared into an adjacent valley. Finally, we were in a place with absolutely no evidence of or proximity to any human activity.
After a week at base camp and a float plane pick-up delayed due to weather, we were all safely transported back to Bettles, where we – after spending the night in our sleeping bags on the floor of the open aircraft hangar – were able to get a flight back to Fairbanks. It was a memorable week, with challenges presented and challenges met, all successfully and with good humor. In spite of early winter conditions, with daily snowfall, strong winds, and below freezing temperatures, we were all prepared and all felt overwhelmingly fortunate to stay in such a unique and amazing place. It was the consummate wilderness experience.
Ellen and I then headed south to Denali National Park for a few days, where she also, coincidentally, has deep ties (yet another story for another time). Again, we were fortunate to experience the Alaskan wilderness in a rare fashion, albeit with a considerably less challenging conditions than in the Gates of the Arctic! We were both happy and relieved to see that in spite of some haphazard development at the Park’s entry and the creation of a couple of new, managed trails by the Park Service, Denali remains as it was when we’d each first encountered it – a wilderness that for the most part is unspoiled and untrammeled. We were also fortunate to rekindle some old friendships and acquaintances, a few over four decades old. A true homecoming and another set of profound experiences. Our plans to return to Alaska are already taking form.
If you’d like to know more, here’s just a small selection of available resources you may find compelling:
https://www.facebook.com/AltUSNationalParkService/ Link to the ‘Alt National Park’ Facebook site. This organization’s standing up for the National Park Service where – because of the current administration – Park Service employees cannot.
http://www.parksconservancy.org Link to the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, our very local and very successful adjunct to the Golden Gate National Park. A consistent source of good news on the conservation (and restoration) front.
http://wilderness.org/ There are many, many great conservation-focused organizations out there and active, but here’s a link to the premier conservation organization focused primarily on wilderness preservation.
https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Lands/Places-to-Visit/Gray-Lodge-WA Link to the Gray Lodge State Wildlife Area. If you can’t get to arctic Alaska, get to Gray Lodge this winter — if you’re lucky, you might be fortunate enough to see or hear the Sandhill Cranes.
Note: The annotated photographs throughout this post and Part One comprise of a few digitized copies of 40+ year-old slides (so please, excuse the quality). Some of the best photographs were graciously ‘loaned’ to me by Kenny Bahr, a semi-professional photographer and one of the members of our Gates of the Arctic party. If you’re at all compelled to share any of these in any form, please refrain from sharing Kenny’s, as they represent a good portion of his livelihood (you can, of course, contact him to purchase: kennybahr@ofmlive.net).
Folly Lake, Brooks Range, Gates of the Arctic. Photo courtesy of Kenny Bahr
First Snow, looking north, Brooks Range, Gates of the Arctic. Photo courtesy of Kenny Bahr
Caribou bulls, Gates of the Arctic. Photo courtesy of Kenny Bahr
Caribou bulls on the run, Gates of the Arctic. Photo courtesy of Kenny Bahr
Caribou bulls, Gates of the Arctic. Photo courtesy of Kenny Bahr
Arctic tundra, Gates of the Arctic
Arctic light, Brooks Range, Gates of the Arctic
Base camp, Brooks Range, Gates of the Arctic
Heading out for the day, Brooks Range, Gates of the Arctic
Brooks Range, Gates of the Arctic
“Today, history represents neither an oppressive past that modernism tried to discard nor a retrograde mind-set against unbridled progress. Instead, at a time when there is too much information and not enough attention — when a general collective amnesia perpetuates a state of eternal presentness — understanding the channels through which history moves and is shaped by architecture is more important than ever.” –Chicago Biennial
Last fall I spent three days in Chicago, taking in the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Make New History was the theme and participants — 140 architects and artists from around the globe — contributed a range of exhibits, from dioramas to live performances, to explore how history can be invoked to inform new ideas and forms in architecture. The Biennial was held in the Chicago Cultural Center (a grand former library built in 1897 and host to the world’s largest Tiffany stained-glass dome), with associated events throughout the city, and it took place from September, 2017 through January, 2018.
“Vertical City,” 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial: Make New History
Of the many thought-provoking exibits, I was most taken with “Vertical City,” a contemporary take on the 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower Competition. With the charge by the Tribune’s publisher Colonel Robert R. McCormick to make “the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world,” the original competition attracted entries from over 260 architects, including Walter Gropius, Adolf Loos, and Eliel Saarinen (who took second). The wildly contrasting ideas influenced generations of architects to come. Resurrected in 1980 by Stanley Tigerman under the guise of “Late Entries,” the Tribune Tower competition (it was actually an invited submittal for a publication) once again attracted some of architecture’s biggest thinkers — Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Bernard Tschumi, and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.
If the 1922 competition made evident a pivot point in architecture toward modernism, and the “Late Entries,” of 1980 turned largely on postmodernist metaphor, fun and sarcasm, how might we understand the “Vertical City” of 2017?
The architects practicing today revealed delightfully varied ideas, represented as scaled models that reimagine the landmark tower. The Cultural Center’s Yates Hall, a large expanse of a room with floor to ceiling windows that pull the city into the space, was given over to the exhibition, fusing the experience with meta. Wandering amid the towers, I felt myself inside a diorama of alternative histories of a building and of a city in which I could, in real time, hear the taxis honking below and feel the glare of the sun moving across the glaze of adjacent buildings.
Of the 16 entries, I found myself sparked by the ones that directly addressed core drivers of the innovation economy: work / life integration, community, connection to the public realm, and non-hierarchy.
Big Bang Tower by Ensamble Studio (far right) and Biennial Project by Kéré Architecture (second from right)
Big Bang Tower: A Column of Columns for the Chicago Tribune by Ensamble Studio
Noting that “an office can be a cubicle and also an open co-working area, a cafe, a lounge, a lab, a multipurpose room, virtual substance in the cloud, a room in your house, and much more,” Ensamble Studio imagined “A Column of Columns” tied together with horizontal structures that vary their positions, heights and areas to frame the city and connect interior spaces. With cores pulled to the sides and located within the envelope (atypical in a traditional high rise) and the asymmetric columns resolving both vertical structure and infrastructure, the floor plates are open to receive a diverse and evolving program. The structure is one in which knowledge workers, who expect work / life integration, might just as easily take in a film as write a creative brief.
“In alignment with current trends, the design forecasts that people will value a balanced work and life ratio while retaining real and meaningful connections with each other and with the places that they live.” Inspired by the Tower of Babel metaphor of a community working together in shared aspiration, Kéré Architecture’s proposal anticipates a mix of housing, workplace, commerce, and recreation in one building. To free up the interior for a variety of amenities and opportunities to connect with community, the cores are pulled outward. Segmented blocks with central voids allow for more private functions, like housing, to be consolidated and located higher up, with more communal activities happening on the ground floor to support integration with the public realm. The proposal offers a microcosm of a neighborhood or a city, a one-stop live/work shop in a tower of the future.
“If the primary source of derivation for modern architecture is classicism, what would an architecture that is derived from a non-Western historical tradition be?” With its design inspired by ancient Chinese architecture’s central organizing concept of the pavilion, and with pavilions stacked vertically to form a pagoda, this proposal offers a structure freed from hierarchical organization, with spaces defined in relation to one another. “The spaces of this new vertical city are attuned to the nature of the knowledge economy and the contemporary media environment where performance dominates, flexibility sets value, and well-being is the ultimate cause. Pavilions frame theaters, meeting zones, restful landscapes, and hedonistic gardens: the true productive spaces for today’s media workers. This is architecture with a language not rooted in Western thought and with a history outside of the narratives of modernism.”
This was the model to which I returned, walking around it, staring into its corners, wanting to step inside and make myself at home.
Does the “Vertical City” — this third festival of ideas centered on iconic American skyscraper — offer a touchpoint, some indication of where urban architecture is going in response to changes in how we work to propel the innovation economy? If so, I’d take note of the Ensamble, Kéré, and Serie entries.
1. Marine Way Office Building 2. Bayshore Office Building 3 & 4 Parking Garages
High visibility atria in the office buildings were key to creating a more vibrant, functional campus for Intuit. These centrally located all-hands spaces had to do many things: reinforce and lend definition to campus patterns, welcome up to 500+ people at a time, and serve different events with varying light, sound, and capacity needs. As the lead corporate campus architect, WRNS Studio had proposed vast clerestory windows in the atria that filled the low, wide floor plates (up to 60,000 sq ft) with natural light and a connection to the sky — key to the experience of beauty and delight favored by the design team. When it came time to execute the design for the first new Marine Way office building on the campus, however, it took a deep dive into Design Development to uncover a viable technical solution for the clerestory windows.
Challenges
Suspended four floors above the deck, with a 60-foot span, the atrium clerestory windows presented no shortage of challenges: We wanted the atrium to be an uplifting, light-filled space, with the clerestories lending texture to scale down its capaciousness. The long span condition, an aesthetic and experiential imperative, could not be broken up by structure; the clerestory windows had to support themselves. In addition to pulling daylight into the interior, the clerestories needed to be controllable, allowing the atrium to darken for presentations, and to transition back easily, supporting supplemental artificial lighting. Likewise, the clerestories needed to integrate with the building’s other systems, helping to balance sound (large atria can get loud), embed fire sprinklers, and act as a passive smoke exhaust system. A strategy for cleaning the windows and general maintenance was required. Then there was constructability: How could we avoid installing a ton of expensive scaffolding?
Certainly not a first for WRNS — initial sketches to solve this head-scratcher happened late at night over wine, progressing to a solution that is at once detailed and expansive.
Pre-cast to the Rescue
After many iterations, we landed on a pre-cast clerestory beam system. The advantages were many: pre-cast beams would allow for the integration of vertical clerestory glazing, which would be much easier to maintain and present fewer waterproofing concerns compared with skylights. We knew the beams could span structurally (we’d designed them in parking structures), and they’d arrive on the site with a finished surface crafted at the shop, good for schedule and quality control. The pre-cast solution would allow us to create a custom shape to meet our objectives for drama and texture of light, sound absorption, and views of the sky.
But could we actually do it? The span was long (60 feet!). The beams would have to be deep and heavy. Thankfully, Willis Construction was on the job. Of the many advantages to using a pre-cast system, we could work with our fabricator in real time to prototype and test ideas for shaping the beam, carving, and bending light to our needs.
Collaborate, Iterate
The pre-cast clerestory beam in Willis Construction Yard
The pre-cast clerestory beam solution was a true collaboration with Willis Construction: design aesthetic meets engineering, structural analysis, and physical testing. Development of the beam’s shape and geometry was a lengthy and detailed dialogue: Willis conducted full-size, 6’ x 8’ mockups at their yard, which we reviewed together for shape and finish. These mockups complemented WRNS’ in-house computer model. We also sent a model of the pre-cast system to our acoustical consultant, who did a thorough analysis looking at ways that the beams’ shape and surface treatment might mitigate sound reflection within the large space.
Panoramic rendering iterations
In all, eight iterations were explored, each investigating the beam’s specific shape, density, and rotation. The different versions were illustrated as interactive panoramic renderings and presented to Intuit as part of a holistic analysis focused largely on the qualities of light in the atrium. The selected solution was further studied in a virtual reality simulation and presented to Intuit.
Detail Diagram
Detail
This section of the pre-cast beam illustrates its form, structure, and integration with the building’s MEP systems — optimizing the shape to address every aspect, from structure to acoustics, to address specific needs. Intuit wanted their new workplace to be raw and informal, robust and monumental. As an integral part of the structure, the pre-cast beams allowed for a consistent and strong, but elegant surface. The beams were hoisted high above the roof, and slowly lowered between the cast-in-place concrete girder walls, then telescoping steel tubes were extended to take the primary gravity loads. Initial discussions focused on access and the ability for maintenance staff to walk across and service the roof & glazing safely, and we shaped the beams accordingly. Electrochromic glass used for the vertical clerestory glazing allows for easy dimming or darkening via controls. An acoustic plaster fascia panel on the inside face of each beam houses sprinklers and attachment points for multiple pendant tube-lamp fixtures.
Light and shadow
In early iterations, the clerestory windows were facing north, until our resident building technologies sage Moses Vaughan, got involved. We were about to ask our client to invest heavily in an engineering feat — integrating these large, heavy beams into the overall systems approach to the atrium — when it was brought to our attention that the light we’d be pulling in from the north would be beautiful, but soft. Based on observation of similar clerestory windows we had researched, it became apparent we were missing an opportunity to capture the kind of strong direct sunlight that would make for dynamic shadow play traversing daily across the all-hands space. Moving through the space, the beams might appear to “unfold” as they bend light inward. By reversing the orientation of the clerestory lights from north to south-facing, we maximized the spatial drama through light, shadow, and texture.
Constructability
The pre-cast, clerestory beam portion of the project was technically a design-build effort, anticipating not only the design and engineering but also how we were going to fabricate, transport, and insert the beams into the structure. Significant engineering went into just the installation process itself. Given the individual beam weight (each at 88,000 lbs) we needed a heavy-duty crane with serious capacity. One of two cranes on the west coast rated for 80 tons was rented, pushing us to an even bigger “100-ton crane.” This added power brought its own structural and safety challenges, as the only site on campus that made sense for locating the crane was directly atop an existing culvert. This culvert services all of the Mountain View greenbelts, so the operation was understandably sensitive. We shored up the foundation around the culvert to ensure the crane’s weight was distributed on either side of the tunnel, ensuring it wouldn’t fall through.
The weight of one beam is equivalent to that of an adult humpback whale or railway boxcar.
Tectonics + Identity
The atrium is the ultimate connector: building to campus (as a mid-block crossing), interior to exterior, ground to sky, and people to one another. With the beams installed, it became immediately apparent that the pre-cast clerestory beams would indeed conjure the kind of airy texture — light and shadow drifting down from above and playing off of the atrium’s surfaces throughout the day — that would endow the space with that timeless, inspirational quality we recognize in really good buildings. If place marks and reflects identity, then the spaces in which we come together as a community have the opportunity to put a fine point on aspiration. As the atrium advances coherence and vibrancy at the campus scale, so do its tectonics — and specifically, the innovative approach to pre-cast clerestory beams — make possible the atrium’s success on the programmatic scale as a multi-use, all-hands community space that reflects Intuit’s identity and aspiration.
Dia:Beacon
The early morning sky and the beat of the steel pull my gaze to the Hudson’s flat surface, the fawn landscape. It swishes by. I’m headed up to Beacon, a small leafy town just over an hour’s train ride out of Manhattan. From the station, I walk through the gathering heat, up a small hill, and around a bend to a low-slung brick structure surrounded by quiet, ordered grounds and trees. I pass through a dark, compressed entry and into the museum and I stop — that sense of quiet and awe that happens to me in a great place. There’s just so much light. Skylights pull in the blue from above and the landscape is in every window. My skin is warm and illuminated. I run my fingers along a rough-hewn wall. I wander.
Art + Architecture
I can see why Robert Irwin, who has spent much of his career exploring spatial relations and the subtleties of perception, wanted to help reimagine how an old Nabisco box-printing factory built in 1929 might be transformed into a museum housing art from the 60’s and 70’s. Irwin designed the master plan, grounds, and windows at Dia:Beacon — his own contribution to the ethos of permanent installation, or art as created, installed, and experienced within a site-specific context. The raw beauty and honest construction of industrial architecture — broad, day lit spans set to brick, steel, concrete, and glass — make the building itself feel like art. And much like the works it houses — Donald Judd’s wood boxes or Sol LeWitt’s patterns — this place leaves the story up to you. It’s like you’re the point.
An Excursus
I find Irwin’s Excursus: Homage to the Square³ — sixteen interconnected, square(ish) spaces constructed of translucent, white scrim and illuminated by vertical fluorescent tubes. Originally installed at the Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea in 1998 and site-adapted for Dia:Beacon, Homage to the Square³ invokes Joseph Albers’ seminal inquiry into the subjective experience of color.
Walking through the space, I imagine falling into an Albers painting, his squares tilted upright and organized into a maze. As I move through the chambers, the colors, vibrant in the hands of Irwin, shift to the peripheral. There is daylight and warmth. Ghostly figures pass through the scrim. Footsteps on the soft wood. Trains rumble up the Hudson, making the sounds of industry, past and present. After a while, Albers recedes, Irwin falls away, and it’s just the daylight, the space, and me — playful, pensive, and ethereal. It seems like a good idea to just lie down on that luscious wood floor and stare up at the sky.
But West Texas awaits: a large-scale installation, Irwin’s first and only ground up building, has opened at the Chinati. His exploration of the phenomena of perception through the mediums of light and space in the Chihuahuan Desert is something I need to experience.
Marfa
It’s a bit mind-blowing to wake up to the taxis, stilettos, and steam of a summer day in New York and fall asleep under the black lit silence of a West Texan desert. As the white noise of the city gives way to the thunderous silence of the land — the bark of a dog, the steel grind of a train — my senses hone.
The Chihuahuan desert is situated atop a highland plane called the Marfa Plateau, punctuated by low-slung mountains under a sky that curves all around you. The grassland, cacti, dirt, rocks, and adobe meet the sky to make a variable brown-blue palette that changes throughout the day.
Like many of the buildings in Marfa — modest, straightforward adobe and concrete structures that defer to the geography and climate — Irwin’s modern, concrete building is a quietly elegant portal into the unexpected. U-shaped and organized around a landscaped garden, untitled (dawn to dusk), 2016 sits within the footprint of an old Fort D.A. Russell hospital originally constructed in 1921. It is approximately 10,000 square feet.
when things start to get super untitled
A kid who seems strangely serene for someone who appears to be 15 lets us in. My friend and I managed to miss the scheduled tour (desert distractions abound, I tell you), and so it’s just the two of us. It’s late in the day, but the sun rides high. The land and the light and the sky follow us through a tall and generous sequence of windows. We’ve been asked not to take pictures inside the space.
Again, the scrims: white and black panels, veins running up the building arms, divide the structure into light and dark, intersecting at the crux. We immediately grow quiet and separate, our footsteps on the concrete. The building’s original use is with me — I imagine the people who came through, living and dying. I walk the length of the white scrims, watching the landscape through the sequence of windows, light and space given shape.
In his fantastic book, seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees, Lawrence Weschler writes of Irwin’s artwork, “Perhaps the central concern of all these installations has been their presence — temporal, spatial — such that any descriptive report of their character or intention necessarily betrays their essential nature.” And yet, the procession:
I turn into the crux of the U. The darkness is sudden, dissonant. The contrast a jolt. I slow my pace through the dark side and reach the end. I turn back and walk slowly through the black scrims. I feel weightless and heady. The landscape, the sunlight, the sky recede as I move through the space, the clarity, and the blur.
Each scrim a thunk at my chest, a slow pulse. I pass through something and something passes through me, and it has weight and energy and a beat.
My friend and I lock eyes.
“I know, right?” she says.
There are tears in her eyes. Mine too.
She can’t know what I feel, nor I her. But as we leave in silence, I think we carry something out — a sense of our own consciousness. And perhaps we are closer to knowing the profound and beautiful difference of that in all of us.
wil·der·ness noun /ˈwildərnəs/
(1) a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings (2) an area essentially undisturbed by human activity together with its naturally developed life community
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I’ll be retiring as an active partner of WRNS at the end of this year and as I prepare for this change, I’ve been thinking more and more about wilderness (yup…that’s right, wilderness) – my history with it, what defines it, where it still exists, how much remains, and how our profession, so focused on building and transforming the environment, can serve to protect it. So, this feels like a good time to record – through personal experience and a couple of stories – some thoughts on the subject (accompanied by a few photos, of course).
If by reading this you get to thinking about wilderness, great. If by reading it you’re inspired to take more direct action, even better. The country needs a new conservation movement, and you are all more qualified than most to join it. At the least, I hope the following is informative and mildly entertaining…
I grew up in Downey, California – a blue-collar town smack in the middle of Los Angeles’ post-WW II sprawl, where I had little exposure to wilderness. As I got older, occasional trips to the Southern California desert and even more occasionally, trips to Yosemite, introduced me to the concept of “uncultivated regions.” Both the desert and Yosemite, at least those areas I was able to access, were fairly well-trodden and actively managed – not real wilderness by any current definition – but I tried my best to venture out to their edges whenever possible. While hiking, discovering places where there was little or no evidence of human habitation became a passion.
My interest in wilderness grew after entering Berkeley in the 70’s. It was a great time to study architecture, as the environmental movement was in full swing. Architects were re-discovering links between long-term ecological thinking (which evolved into sustainable design) and the act of conservation, and their work was beginning to reflect it (think ‘Sea Ranch’). Being at Berkeley, we were also assaulted by a new wave of dire predictions focused on the unsustainability of our modern civilization: unchecked population growth, pollution, nuclear proliferation, the squandering of natural resources, and the horrors of war (Vietnam in particular, which was finally just ending) all pointed to the end of our species and the planet as we knew it. As architecture students, we became convinced that employing the power of sustainable design and enacting sound environmental public policy could save the earth. It was heady times.
My architecture professors at Berkeley were inspiring, but didn’t come close to influencing me to the extent a couple other professors did. The first was Daniel Luten. A chemist turned environmentalist, he was one of our country’s foremost authorities on wilderness and the importance of its preservation. I remember him best for proposing half-jokingly, half-longingly, the creation of a National Migratory Buffalo Pathway – a 200-mile wide swath of land stretching from the Canadian border to the Texas panhandle — where the once-great American Bison herds could be reinstated and then left to migrate freely along their ancestral pathways. Wow. The second was Starker Leopold. Son of Aldo Leopold (author of The Sand County Almanac and one of the great voices of the American conservation movement), Starker Leopold was a professor of Forestry and Zoology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a special advisor to the National Park Service. His class in wildlife biology, more than any class I’d ever taken, changed the course of my studies and to a large extent, my outlook on life.
I can trace this change to a class field trip. On a cold, overcast winter day, Professor Leopold led us on a trip into the Sacramento Valley and up to the Gray Lodge State Wildlife Refuge, about a two-hour drive northeast from San Francisco. A 9,100-acre reserve flanking the Sutter Buttes, Gray Lodge protects a riparian and wetlands ecosystem that once encompassed the entirety of California’s Central Valley and now serves as a critical stop for migratory birds travelling the Pacific Flyway. While growing up I’d seen an occasional v-shaped skein of migrating waterfowl fly through the Southern California skies, but never anything like I experienced at Gray Lodge. Imagine over a million migratory waterfowl (ducks, geese, swans) flying in and out of the refuge area in groups of all sizes, at every elevation, to and from every direction. It was chaotic and powerful. I was a bit overwhelmed, fumbling with my camera, trying to capture some images of meaning, when I heard the call of a flight of birds completely new and unfamiliar to me. Sandhill Cranes. A very old species with fossil records dating back over 10,000,000 years, the cranes were flying high over the refuge, well above the cacophony below. Listening to that ghostly call — a sound that hit me in my spine — connected me with the stretch of time and the concept of wilderness like nothing I’d ever experienced. Luckily, I was standing right next to Professor Leopold and quickly asked him where those birds were coming from. He looked at me and smiled, “The sandhills? Why, they’re flying south from their breeding grounds in the arctic…they’re coming from Alaska.”
Grey Lodge State Wildlife Refuge, Sacramento Valley
From then on I had one important goal in mind – to get to Alaska and to the greatest extent possible, experience what our country must have looked like before colonists obliterated it and more importantly, to see the wilderness those cranes had come from. I continued my studies in architecture, but modified my curriculum to earn a Minor in Wildlife Biology. I read every book on Alaska, the arctic, and the subject of wilderness I could find. I applied for a job as a National Park Service seasonal ‘Ranger/Naturalist’ in Mt. McKinley National Park (now “Denali National Park and Preserve”), got the job, accelerated my graduation so I wouldn’t miss any part of my first season in Denali, and in May 1974, I took off in my 1964 Ford Econoline Van (“The White Iron”) and headed north.
It was a 3,000 + mile trip, and a good portion of the drive took place on the mostly unpaved Alcan Highway. I quickly became immersed in the lore and history of Alaska and the Park, and worked hard to offer that knowledge to the visitors who’d travelled from so far away to visit it. Midway into the season, I was able to transfer to the Park’s concessioner as a Naturalist/Guide, helping me to earn a bit more money to support upcoming grad school. As well, the job was free of many of the political constraints that came with Federal employment: the small group of Naturalist/Guides had greater flexibility regarding what we could share with the Park’s visitors. We were all young, idealistic, committed, completely immune to differing points-of-view (that is, a little naive and self-righteous) and even as relative newcomers, we were fiercely protective of Alaska, its wilderness, and the Park that we were growing to love beyond all description.
View to terminus of Muldrow Glacier, Alaska Range, Denali National Park
I recall a couple of days during that first season as if they happened last week. 99% of the visitors to Denali experience the Park only from the seat of a bus (which from the Park’s perspective and its sustainability, is a blessing). The Park’s only road, with just the first 15 miles paved and the remainder gravel, stretches 90 miles from its entry at the state highway, past Wonder Lake to the end of the road at the Kantishna, once a gold-mining encampment but now home to a couple of notable wilderness lodges. The typical day trip is about eight hours, travelling sixty miles into the Park before turning around and heading back. As a Naturalist/Guide, it was my job to take a daily group of 40 visitors on these day long journeys, help them spot wildlife and points of interest, and enlighten them on the Park’s geology, natural history, cultural history, wildlife, biology, etc. The first of those two days was a disaster. My group had all travelled a long way and gotten up at 4:00 am for this journey but unfortunately, saw virtually nothing during the eight-hour trip but the rear end of a wet moose. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for their extreme disappointment. It rained all day, and low fog obscured even the lower peaks of the north expanse of the Alaska Range. They had no chance to see even a glimpse of Denali. As well, no grizzly bears, no caribou, no Dall sheep, no golden eagles, and not even a marmot or a pika.
True to form and the vagaries of weather and wilderness, the next day was unbelievably magnificent. Clear and relatively warm, we had a bonanza of wildlife sightings – numerous moose; over thirteen-hundred caribou (a good portion of the small ‘McKinley’ herd); eighteen individual grizzly bears including three sows, each with two yearling cubs; over fifty Dall sheep in several distinct groups; golden eagles and several species of hawks. We also glimpsed a Canadian lynx (a rare siting) and most fortunately, a grey wolf from afar (a very rare siting). As for Denali, the day was clear and cloudless from sunrise with its summit in alpen glow (from around eighty miles away), to the mountain in its entirety from thirty miles away later in the day (the mountain rises three miles from its base, and thirty miles from that base is its closest distance from the Park road).
At the end of this day and back at the Park entry, my very tired but appreciative, mostly elderly passengers disembarked, having had what I believe was one of the most memorable days of their lives. As most of them disembarked, rushing to secure their baggage and quickly get to the train depot for their six-hour ride to Anchorage, one woman came off the bus and took me aside. She told me her husband had recently passed and they had planned this once-in-a lifetime trip together. As difficult as it was for her, she still came in spite of his passing, hoping to honor his memory. She was absolutely sure that the rare nature of the day and the things she was able to see were the doings of her husband’s spirit, and that she felt him next to her the entire trip. I often still hear and feel her words.
Towards the end of each trip into the Park, I used to implore visitors – most of whom were only in the Park that one day in their entire lives – to remember what they had seen and to take those memories back home with them, seek the wilderness still existing in their own communities, and then work hard to protect and conserve it. If my message resonated with at least a couple visitors out of the 40 or so I’d guided through the Park on any given day, I’d consider it a success. Certainly that message resonated on that most memorable day.
Denali – tallest mountain in North America, Denali National Park
Note: The annotated photographs throughout this post and Part Two comprise of a few digitized copies of 40+ year-old slides (so please, excuse the quality). Some of the best photographs were graciously ‘loaned’ to me by Kenny Bahr, a semi-professional photographer and one of the members of our Gates of the Arctic party. If you’re at all compelled to share any of these in any form, please refrain from sharing Kenny’s, as they represent a good portion of his livelihood (you can, of course, contact him to purchase: kennybahr@ofmlive.net).
“In architecture, with knowledge and content generated through many modes of production, there has always been a dichotomy between talking and drawing. Raul is one of the most beautiful drawers I’ve ever known, bringing the poetry that is at the center of an authentic architecture, the sensibility that is the DNA of our firm. I’ve personally loved our collaboration, of not many words but of many drawings.” – Bryan Shiles
We recently sat down with Raul to talk about life at WRNS.
You were one of WRNS Studio’s first employees, joining us in 2005. What brought you here?
I’d been working with Bryan Shiles and Sam Nunes for a few years at our former firm, and we had a symbiotic relationship, so joining them here felt like a natural step. Aesthetically we were speaking the same language, and that continued at WRNS, which immediately had a very real, authentic studio vibe. My good friend Brian Milman had come over too and I thought—I want to be working with these people.
When we started, we had a strong start-up culture. We had to hook up computers and printers ourselves. The plotter room had no lights so we used a flashlight to make sure the right drawing was plotting. There were eight to ten of us and we were always meeting as a studio, making meals together. We were super focused on just getting through the first year or two. Very rapidly we started growing, moving around from office to office. Every project was getting better than the previous one. In the blink of an eye, ten years went by.
WRNS has grown exponentially, jumping from 75 employees in 2015 to 150 projected by the end of 2016. How do we keep our soul?
Our studio’s hands-on vibe and focus on craft has everything to do with our people. We like to work with people who work hard but have fun. A couple of years ago, when we started hiring intensely, John Ruffo came up with the idea of creating a hiring committee. He picked four leaders with very different perspectives to invest in recruiting and hiring the right staff who fit into our studio culture and meet our high standards for talent. As a result we have a low turnover rate, and we’re surrounded by people we enjoy working with—architects, designers and creatives we admire and respect.
What are some of the biggest opportunities and challenges the studio faces right now?
Architecture has been diverted, necessarily I’m sure, by more complicated paradigms—programs are more complex, regulations are more strict, budgets have increasingly precise targets—and there’s no way around that, but as a design firm we take beauty as the overarching principle that adds significant value to the equation. Fortunately, our clients share this philosophy.
So the challenge comes with every new project in that we strive to make a better building—a more beautiful one—than what came before. What we’ve learned on past projects informs future ones. Of course, there’s great opportunity in trying to outperform ourselves.
How do you define beauty?
The concept of beauty is so subjective; what is pleasant to me might not be to you, and vice versa. And of course, the concept of beauty changes with time. But for me, beauty brings pleasure to the senses. While most often related to sight, beauty in architecture has a strong (and very personal) spatial dimension; we are conscious of our bodies in relationship to different scales or different environments, and we experience emotions while inhabiting or moving through these spaces.
Who or what were your early influences?
I think the first building that moved me was a country club on the outskirts of Mexico City by the Polish architect, Vladimir Kaspé, a refugee living in Mexico. I must have been ten years old and I walked into this outrageous lobby with a grand, circular stair inside a glass pavilion. That place struck me, and I’ve always remembered it. When I began practicing, I was quite taken by the work of Kalach, Broid, and Norten, who were challenging the strictures of critical regionalism and the “emotional architecture” that followed the works of Barragán. That was why I approached Enrique to ask if I could work for him. He didn’t have any positions open but I said, “just let me learn, don’t worry about paying me,” and that conversation turned into my first real studio job.
How has being from Mexico City informed your work?
Design is everywhere in Mexico—textiles, ceramics, paintings, even food. We see it, we breathe it. Design feels intrinsic to our culture, part of our DNA.Our culture is a blend of pre-colonial cultures, and the mix of baroque and Moorish influences of the Spanish conquerors. Therefore our arts are infused with mysticism, expressive forms and colors. As a counterpoint, I found with enormous interest an almost opposite aesthetic approach in the U.S., one that is more rational, structured, organized and pragmatic. So in my work I try to balance sensibility with rationale. My approach, as a designer, is that rationale frames the basis of design and then I let my emotions and feelings drive my hand.
How did you learn what being a designer meant?
Understanding processes, foreseeing problems and workload, organizing a team, managing client requests and budget issues—I think these are all things that can be learned through training or experience. But design per se…it may be something you come wired with and hone through discipline.
We say that form is the byproduct of thought, but there’s a certain magic that happens through one’s sensibilities. You might craft a great story and yet not make a beautiful object, and on the other side you make a great object with no underpinning thought at all, which can be problematic, so there’s this perfect balance that must be struck between rationale and feeling.
What are your inspirations outside of architecture?
I find a lot of interest in graphic design. I enjoy the proportion, balance and depth of two-dimensional compositions. I also learn a lot from object design—the different ways that things can be put together, the physics of materials, the elegance of forms, the mechanics of assemblies, etc. This is an old topic in architecture, but I also enjoy the correlation between music and architecture. Both represent spatial phenomena—volume, depth, rhythm, harmony—and music can elicit the same kind of emotions that catalyze an idea or result from appreciating a space in a certain way.
What is it you really want to do on projects?
I want to make sure that the project responds responsibly to its context, that it is well situated in its city or place, that it ties seamlessly with the local culture, and that it will age properly. When we look back to our designs in five or ten years and find the quintessential concepts are still there, and that people are enjoying what we made, then we can measure the impact of our design—and that’s the most rewarding achievement.
What do you think makes a good leader?
Edwin Halim: You have to lead by example. That’s really the most important thing. Your actions should set the tone.
David Gutzler: You need to trust and depend on your team. We hire good people at WRNS, so I know my team will perform. Along the way, it’s important to give people the opportunity to own things and grow. It should never feel like you’re just giving orders all day.
How do you hope to mentor others as they grow within the firm?
Annelise DeVore: Leadership and mentorship happen together; they’re synonymous. That’s why teaching is really important to me. I try to help people learn things outside of their job description so they can grow and try something new. It helps that we have a very inquisitive staff. They ask why, and that often prompts you to ask yourself the same question. Inevitably, you begin thinking about how you could do it better.
Edwin Halim: Letting people know we are available to answer questions is really important, even if it’s not directly related to the work. I’m always available to talk about the licensure process, code information, etc.
What drew you to WRNS when you first joined? What made you stay?
David Gutzler: WRNS’ body of work really spoke to me — that’s what convinced me to join and a big reason why I’m still here.
Rodney Leach: There’s a real balance here — both in our diversity of projects and work/life flexibility. Other firms can be pretty rigid about the way the workday and the design approach is structured. It creates siloes. WRNS isn’t like that.
Edwin Halim: I love that it’s a studio environment. You work with everyone from interns to owners; everyone’s opinion matters.
John Schlueter: The projects are well crafted and have stories that tie them to their place and purpose. It was evident that there is a depth of discussion and playful discovery that is part of the work.
Where do you see WRNS in the next five years? How do you hope we’ll grow?
Annelise DeVore: The New York studio is exciting, because there is still a lot of room to grow and expand. In San Francisco, we’ve grown significantly in the time I’ve been here. It will be interesting to see how that will impact our culture, but I’m not too worried. WRNS has always held culture as a core, explicit value. I don’t see that changing.
Rodney Leach: Our culture is really important, and I hope we can achieve the right balance to maintain it over the next five years. People often call us WRNS Studios, but that irks me a bit. We’re one studio — that’s important to who we are.
John Schlueter: The studio has grown in size, project complexity, and expertise. Balancing this growth with the same dedication to quality of work and team mentality will be the goal.
How do you hope to make an impact within WRNS in the years ahead?
Annelise DeVore: My philosophy is work smarter, not harder. I’m hoping to streamline as many of our processes as possible so we’re spending less time on administrative tasks and more time on architecture.
David Gutzler: I feel optimistic about the future. We’ve only been around for a little over 10 years, and we’ve accomplished a lot in that time. The client relationships we’ve built over the last 10 years and the work we’ve done with them is special.
