PUB 5 2024-2025 ISSUE 4 GSBS Architects Thriving Through Diversity, Talent and Business Smarts LEGENDS RK Stewart FAIA, Hon. FRAIC, Hon. JIA, Hon. AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Reflexion is a publication of the Utah Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. www.aia.org/utah AIA Utah 280 S. 400 W., Ste. 150 Salt Lake City, UT 84101 President Whitney Ward, AIA, LEED AP BD+C President-Elect Clio Rayner, AIA, LEED AP BD+C Secretary Natalie Shutt-Banks, AIA Treasurer Libby Haslam, AIA Editor Frances Pruyn, CPSM Staff Executive Director Angie Harris Roberts Managing Director Joe Mangum ©2025 AIA Utah | The newsLINK Group LLC. All rights reserved. Reflexion is published quarterly by The newsLINK Group LLC for AIA Utah and is the official publication for this association. The information contained in this publication is intended to provide general information for review, consideration and education. The contents do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied on as such. If you need legal advice or assistance, it is strongly recommended that you contact an attorney as to your circumstances. The statements and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the AIA Utah, its board of directors or the publisher. Likewise, the appearance of advertisements within this publication does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation of any product or service advertised. Reflexion is a collective work, and as such, some articles are submitted by authors who are independent of the AIA Utah. While AIA Utah encourages a first-print policy, in cases where this is not possible, every effort has been made to comply with any known reprint guidelines or restrictions. Content may not be reproduced or reprinted without prior written permission. For further information, please contact the publisher at (855) 747-4003. 4 President’s Message AIA Utah 2025 Mid‑Year Report Celebrating Achievements and Building Momentum 6 Member Spotlight Scott Gilberg, AIA 8 Legends RK Stewart, FAIA, Hon. FRAIC, Hon. JIA, Hon. AIA, LEED AP BD+C 17 GSBS Architects Thriving Through Diversity, Talent and Business Smarts 22 How 2025 Utah Legislation Is Shaping the Future of Sustainable Development 24 Supporting Small Firms 25 New Leadership, Renewed Vision How Two Architects Are Reshaping SLCC’s Architecture Department for the Next Generation 28 In Memoriam Helen Louise Starley (McEntire) Norton April 14, 1936-April 11, 2025 29 In Memoriam Franklin T. Ferguson, FAIA Nov. 6, 1935-June 15, 2025 30 2025 AIA Events CONTENTS Cover: Salt Lake Community College Technical Arts Building 3
As we approach the halfway mark of 2025, AIA Utah is proud to reflect on a strong and productive start to the year. With a renewed focus on engaging members, offering meaningful programs and driving advocacy efforts, the chapter has already made significant progress toward its strategic goals. These achievements underscore the commitment of our leadership, volunteers and members to advancing the profession of architecture throughout the state. Advancing Our Goals At a mid-year strategic retreat, AIA Utah outlined clear priorities: • Provide regular events and activities for members. • Expand architectural tour opportunities. • Improve member engagement. • Support issue-focused task forces for the betterment of our communities. We’re pleased to report strong strides across all of these fronts. Dynamic Events and Member Engagement January: Kicking off With Impact • The year began with the Government Affairs Committee Legislative Kick-Off, energizing members around policy issues affecting architecture in Utah. • Tours showcased exceptional local work, including visits to 2024 AIA Utah Design Award winners: the Spanish Fork Library and Fire Station 62. • Members donned hard hats for a behind-the-scenes look at the UVU Engineering Building, gaining insight into the ongoing construction process. February: Policy and Community Building • The Legislative Breakfast offered invaluable face time with state legislators and staff, reinforcing the profession’s presence and value in public policy discussions. • The Young Architects Forum (YAF) hosted a well-attended New Year’s Happy Hour, bringing over 30 emerging professionals together to build connections. March: Leadership and Learning • Our second annual AIA Utah Leadership Summit focused on the needs of small firms and residential architects, facilitating tailored insights and discussions. • Attendees explored the North Capitol Building during an educational session and a hard hat tour focused on design strategy and structural innovation. • The Southern Section met in St. George with a focus on strengthening regional ties and architect engagement. April: Celebrating and Reflecting • We concluded the legislative season with the 2025 Legislative Wrap-Up, a key event in our ongoing advocacy cycle. • The Utah College of Fellows hosted a session on the pathway to Fellowship, supporting members in advancing their careers. • A sold-out tour of the Asher Adams Hotel hosted by YAF reinforced the need for engaging architectural experiences. AIA Utah 2025 Mid‑Year Report Celebrating Achievements and Building Momentum BY WHITNEY WARD, AIA, LEED BD+C, PRESIDENT, AIA UTAH 4 REFLEXION
May: Broadening Impact and Visibility • The BEC-UT/COTE Spring Symposium offered a platform for building science and envelope design evolution and design discussions. • Members enjoyed a tour of the Salt Lake City Library’s renovated rooftop, learning about its architectural transformation. • A special session on what juries look for helped members prepare for award submissions. • Our annual Scholarship Golf Tournament raised funds for architecture students in Utah. • AIA Utah proudly hosted AIA National President Evelyn Lee, fostering direct dialogue between local and national leadership. Task Forces and Strategic Initiatives In alignment with our task forces for good initiative, three new task forces launched this year: • DFCM Design Standards Review Task Force • Affordable Housing Task Force • School Safety Task Force Each task force has been created to respond to real-time needs in the built environment, demonstrating how AIA Utah is helping shape policy and design standards that directly impact communities. Strengthening Communication and Culture This year saw the expansion of Punchlist, our events and opportunities bulletin, improving how we communicate with members and allied organizations. Punchlist and Reflexion serve as a hub for ongoing engagement. Programs like Dear Architect, our storytelling and mentorship platform, continue to deepen the sense of community and shared purpose across generations of architects. Looking Ahead With five months of robust activity behind us, AIA Utah remains focused on delivering even more value in the second half of 2025. From legislative advocacy to design tours and leadership development, every initiative underscores our commitment to a vibrant and inclusive architectural profession in Utah. Stay connected. Stay engaged. We’re building something meaningful — together. Building connections from concept to completion.™ crceng.com | (801) 466-1699 5
Time is valuable; why AIA? I find that being a member of the AIA affords me a lot of networking and development opportunities. I also have access to industry leading education and resources. Most importantly it gives me a voice in shaping and protecting the architecture profession. Favorite Utah space (includes built or natural): Lake Powell. There is no other place quite like it. Favorite book: “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas. Mantra: “May God help me with the things I can’t control, help with the things I can and give me grace to know the difference.” 6 REFLEXION
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LEGENDS RK Stewart FAIA, Hon. FRAIC, Hon. JIA, Hon. AIA, LEED AP BD+C INTERVIEW BY FRAN PRUYN, CPSM RKS speaking at the Solar Decathlon 8 REFLEXION
As part of our ongoing series of interviews with architectural legends, we are proud to present this interview with RK Stewart. It was a pleasure to interview him and to learn more about all the contributions he has made to the industry. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Beginning When did you decide to become an architect? As a kid growing up in the ‘60s in the Midwest, I built car models and airplane models. In suburbia, there were houses being built all over the place, with lots of scrap lumber and materials. I started banging things together, and I got into making stuff. In high school, I thought, “So who are the people who are making cool stuff?” Architecture lured me in and has never let me go. Talk about your training. I was raised in St. Louis, the home of Washington University (WashU). My father was very excited about me going to WashU, and he tried to sell that idea of “And you can live at home,” which didn’t sound like the best idea in the world to me. Kansas and Missouri had a reciprocal agreement where kids from Missouri could go to either the University of Kansas or Kansas State University for in-state tuition. So, I went to Lawrence with my folks and fell in love with the University of Kansas campus; it’s always ranked as one of the most beautiful campuses in the U.S. I went directly into architecture, and following my four-year degree, Fount Smothers, my primary instructor, pointed me to the University of Michigan, which has one of the longest running architecture programs in the country. I went up to Ann Arbor and graduated in 1975 with a Master of Architecture. Those of you with white hair might remember that ‘75 was a year of pretty deep recession with stagflation, so jobs were few, especially for those right out of university. Between my graduation in August and December of that year, I made about 60 contacts with firms all across the country. Most of the time, I’d walk into a place, and there’d be nobody at the reception desk. I’d look around the corner and back in the drafting room. There were three guys with their shirtsleeves rolled up, bent over their parallel bars. The owner perked up with, “Can I help you, son?” I said, “Yeah, I’m just wondering if you need help?” They’d say, “No, but good luck.” That went on for months. Academia Luckily, Fount Smothers had become the chair of architecture at Louisiana State University and needed somebody to fill in for a faculty member on sabbatical. I spent a semester teaching introductory design in Baton Rouge. After that semester, I was able to join the faculty at Mississippi State University. Mississippi State’s School of Architecture had only been stood up about two years earlier in Starkville. In 1976, everything was brand new. William McMinn, FAIA, was the dean, James Barker, FAIA, was the associate dean, and we had about 12 faculty. We were making traditions every day because whatever we did, it was the first time it had ever been done. Dean McMinn, who had worked at CRS out of Houston, was a true legend. The Dean persuaded the folks at CRS to join us as adjunct faculty for about a year. We had our fifth-year students in Jackson getting an urban project while developing their thesis projects. CRS would send guys over for three days a week to work with them. That experience made me understand that there was a lot more to learn about creating buildings than exploring spatial concepts. Since those days, I’ve really tried every day to learn something new but also teach something to someone else. I figured out early on that the teaching component is perhaps more important than the learning component. In our industry, we’re constantly mentoring our younger staff, the contractors we work with, the consultants we work with and, more importantly, our clients because everybody knows what we do, right? Most laypeople, having lived their entire lives in a building, think they can do this stuff. Once you illustrate to them that there are a lot more choices that go into every decision creating a building, Former Presidents RK Stewart, FAIA, with Jeanne Jackson, FAIA, at Investiture 9
they begin to appreciate what it is we do. Not only are we creating the place for them to do their stuff, but we’re creating the environments and the backgrounds against which people live their lives. Private Practice Talk about your work in private practice. I did some short stints with small firms, and while this gives you a great opportunity for one kind of project and some responsibility, I recognized that I was more of a big-firm person. I reveled in the resources available, the number of perspectives you got and the kind of projects that came our way. After my stint teaching at Mississippi State, I also recognized that staying in academia was not a good long-term option for me and started to look around. In 1978, I moved to Chicago. It’s by far the best large American city, the place you want to be, particularly as an architect — the legacy of Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright and Meis, right? After about six months of working with a small firm on a temporary assignment, I got hired at SOM. We were at 30 West Monroe, the Inland Steel Building, one of the greatest office buildings in the world. That experience was foundational because I learned that the balance between design, practice management, technical performance and project management is key to success for any firm. They really taught us how to put buildings together. It was a fascinating experience working with people like Bruce Graham, FAIA, Diane Legge, FAIA, and Fazlur Kahn. I had one older project architect who said, “Don’t draw more in the morning than you can erase in the afternoon.” This was in the days of parallel bars, mylar and plastic “lead.” Computers were just starting to permeate the firms. One of the great assets we had at SOM was the microfiche room. You’d be working away at your desk on a project. The job captain or designer would look at what you were doing and say, “This detail is kind of like this other project we did 10 years ago. Go to the microfiche room and check it out.” The protocol was that every time you finished a major milestone on a project, you would have those drawings put on microfiche and then sent to storage. You could go down there and look up the entire development of any sheet of drawings in that set, from conceptual design to shop drawings. You really learned how to take even the smallest detail and make it shine. That’s when I realized that the project delivery component was critical to the success of any project. Over the six years that I was with SOM, I saw some great conceptual projects come apart in development. On the flip side, I saw some mediocre concepts become gems through the work of the development team and then become brilliant in the end. That taught me that everything we do in the profession is design. That word “design” is really a tricky bit of business. In 2002-03, while I was on the national board, AIA did a marketing research campaign. They brought in owners, contractors, consultants and the whole range of people we ally with to get projects done. They did the whole “behind the one-way mirror” research thing — talked to them about what we do, what the hang-ups were and what kind of things were impediments to getting projects done. It turns out the word “design” is really at the crux of the conflicts that develop over time in any project. Is it a noun, or is it a verb? Our clients think it’s a noun. Architects understand it’s a verb. We always talk about the design process. Once that crystallized in my mind, it helped me understand how to manage clients better because they’re thinking we’re just doing the object. No, it’s the whole process. Knowing that helps to draw into clear focus the context of a project. Rarely is there an open field out in the middle of the West Desert where that building is going to stand alone. Even if you’re the first one out there, you’re creating the context for those who follow. We all know these iconic buildings in cities around the world, but we also know that they would not be icons if there wasn’t the background, the context in which they landed them to place them in their culture and in their time. You worked for some other stellar firms. What did they teach you? I spent 20 years with Art Gensler out of the San Francisco office. The culture at Gensler was truly the most amazing part of that firm. Art was very clear with all of us, that our job — everybody from the mailroom guy through Olympic Center Tower 10 REFLEXION
the receptionist to the principals — is to make our clients’ enterprises better. It’s not about what we do. It’s about how we’re going to make their business, their lives and their community better. The other component was that if we’re not making money, we can’t do the right job to service our clients. Because everybody throughout the firm understood that was what we were doing, it fostered a deep spirit of collaboration between offices. I had a number of firmwide responsibilities on the technical side: project delivery, code expertise and regulatory approval stuff. I was often called upon to go to another office and give them a hand to strategize, market a particular project, or solve technical or code issues. So, I saw how that collaborative spirit was evident in how people worked every day. I can’t tell you the number of times that I would drop into the Houston office or the Chicago office, or somebody from New York would fly in. We’d spend the evening having dinner in the office and prepping for an interview the next morning. Once in the interview, the next day, things would go like clockwork. Every one of us knew the stories and how to play off each other. It was clear to clients that we liked to work together, and they had a sense of what we’d be like to work with them. Arthur was great about recognizing and celebrating the people who actually did the work behind the scenes. Within the first couple of years of starting the practice, he set up a profit-sharing plan for the staff. Then, after I was there about eight years or so, we went to an Employee Stock Option Program. By the time I left, the holdings of the employees in the ESOP were about 40%. The profit-sharing plan continued to grow. So even if you’re the guy who’s the most expert at detailing stairs and you’ve been there for 35 years, you’re going to retire with a nice nest egg. EFI Building How did your career evolve after Gensler? In 2008, I went to work with Perkins&Will for about eight years, and while I was doing some projects, I was mostly working on the corporate side to advance the technical performance, standards and project delivery processes that we used to develop projects. Perkins&Will’s model of growth is to acquire other firms. I spent a fair amount of time working with these firms that were acquired to instill the cultural values that make Perkins&Will who they are. In the past 10 years, I’ve moved into consulting roles, cutting back from practice as I have gotten older. I’ve been working with some guys out of London, Bond Events, who do conferences for architects and suppliers. It’s been a great experience, continuing to learn something/teach something I’ve pursued for a long time. Favorite Projects Projects that you are particularly proud of? There’s a number of them that really stick. When I was with SOM, we did the additions to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston, and I was a job captain. There was the glamour and traditions of the old Ritz; it was right on the Boston Garden. We added some ballroom spaces across the alley, fronting on the Garden, some hotel rooms and some condos up top, which was a technical challenge as well as a design review challenge because of its historic nature. With Gensler, I did a whole range of things — office buildings, Silicon Valley campuses and things like that — but I tended to specialize in the historic preservation and retail spaces around Union Square. I worked on pretty much every corner of Union Square. The Nike store on the northeast corner was particularly challenging. It was a building that was built in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake. During the rush to rebuild, they used a
lot of materials that were available, like low-grade concrete and deformed bar, rather than rebar as we know it today. They had a lot of different shapes and sizes and dimensions of reinforcing. They also used ceramic clay tile to create a bridging structure that they then poured concrete topping on. That project was particularly interesting because it was a “high rise,” 75’ to the top floor, on a steeply sloping site along Stockton Street. We were able to develop a scheme that inserted an extra floor of retail sales space, taking advantage of the slope. The fire department’s access we relocated up that slope. That allowed us to decommission it as a high rise; therefore, we could provide a single fireproof tower rather than two, freeing up 120 square feet for each of the six floors that then became rental space. That project was very complex in terms of understanding how to satisfy the Historic Preservation Commission, as well as how to deal with the building code. There is also the Geary Theater, which was actually under construction when the 1906 earthquake hit. It was badly damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. We addressed the National Historic Landmark status of the building and strengthened it seismically for safety. We created a new lounge on the upper floors that had never existed before. That was perhaps my most joyful building because of its history. We found remnants of the paint schemes in the lobby. The new lounge allowed that space to become part of the city again, part of the cityscape, overlooking the street life below. For several years, I was a regular show attendee. One of my favorite things to do was to get there early and go up to that lounge, get a glass of wine and sit there and watch people discover this space. They’d been coming to that theater for years and years before the earthquake, and we created this fabulous open stairway up to this new lounge space. People would wander up the stairs and say, “I never knew this existed.” Because it didn’t. We created it. It was all new. Then there’s a San Francisco Jewish Community Center in the Avenues of San Francisco. It was also a great project because it’s on the site of the prior facility, which was very beloved by the community. It had become outdated, and we created a new place that was reminiscent of what had been there in the past, but created a whole new set of opportunities for the rich cultural heritage to flourish as it continued to grow. Service to the Community and the Profession I’d come through the ranks of the technical performance side of things; very much engaged in computer technology, but also with technical code performance issues. Having worked in Chicago for six years, which had unique locally developed building codes, I’d become well versed with the nuances of building code. There is the letter of the code, but also the intent of the provision. So, while you developed the building, although you might not be within the letter, if you could convince the building official you were providing the level of safety required, you could achieve a safer, higher-performing building. When I got to San Francisco, the strict interpretation that we got from the building department there got the hair up on the back of my neck. In some cases, it wasn’t actually helping our clients’ projects or achieving the kind of safety that I think we all seek in our projects. Also, the California Environmental Quality Act means that the planning process is very detailed, taking the time to at least get approvals, and the San Francisco historic preservation issues put on an additional layer. I became quite skilled at understanding those interlocked code issues, and trying to influence their development became a priority for me. That’s pretty much where I found AIA. The AIA San Francisco Chapter had about 1,400 members, (probably 1,800 today) with a very active committee structure. I got involved with the committee that was trying to influence the building code and the planning code. I built relationships with the building officials and the fire chiefs. I learned that you could influence the codes. You’ve got to be willing to speak up. You’ve got to be able to compromise. You’ve got to be able to find common ground that advances the entire enterprise. I came to understand that while we as individual architects have a voice, bigger issues that impact the environment we work in are really the purview of the AIA. As I started working through the committee positions at AIA San Francisco, I became keenly aware that as architects, we serve two masters: the public, but also our clients who pay the bill. Sometimes that creates a conflict and you’ve got to be able to negotiate that. Beyond our professional obligations of the license, we’re also small business people. Things like tax policy — particularly things that will impact our client, like historic tax credits, or affect a firm’s profits — are things that we need to pay attention to. That just deepened my resolve that AIA was a place to put a lot of energy. I found it to be a super-rich environment to develop your leadership skills because now you are working with volunteers. Anybody can walk away at any time or just stop engaging. How do you draw them in? How do you make them individually understand that their contribution to the profession, as well as the community, is really meaningful? One of the peak experiences in my career was following the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, the Loma Prieta earthquake. During the highway building boom in the ‘50s San Francisco Jewish Community Center
and ‘60s, there had been an effort to link the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge with an elevated freeway along the waterfront of the Embarcadero. Fortunately, there was a big effort in the late ‘60s to halt that freeway at Broadway Street. For the southern portion of the waterfront between the Bay Bridge and Broadway, there was a double-decker, four-lane-wide freeway that just stopped and would drop people back to the ground level. The day of the earthquake was pretty traumatic. A 7.0 earthquake gets your attention right away. It was during the World Series; everybody was eager to get out of the office. Then the earthquake hit. In those days, I was taking the ferry back and forth from Marin County. I’d gotten down to the waterfront and didn’t really realize that the viaduct (the double decker) had been severely damaged. We’re all streaming under it to catch a ferry out of the city. Then we got to the docks, and somebody said, “Hey, look.” The traffic was stopped on the Bay Bridge because a portion of it had collapsed. Getting out of town that day on the ferry was life-altering. As we started to work on the reconstruction efforts, I was working with a group of four other young guys. So, we came together: Alex Bonutti, FAIA, who was president of AIA San Francisco; Tom Lollini, FAIA, who was the campus architect at UC Berkeley; Clark Manus, FAIA, who I was working with at Heller Leake at the time, now Heller Manus Architects; and then Bruce Race, FAIA, FAPA, who was a planner. We lamented how the freeway had separated the city and the waterfront. We started to think, why rebuild that freeway? Why spend hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild that and perpetuate this division in the city from its heritage and from the beauty of that waterfront? We put together some ideas. We were all dealing with the bureaucracy: the planning commissions and landmarks, and also had relationships with the Sierra Club, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR) and others, which were very engaged in the future of the city. We started shopping our ideas to those groups. We got the AIA component behind it, and we took the show on the road. We found ourselves in the office of San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. We sold Mayor Agnos on the idea. Margie O’Driscoll, who was his deputy mayor for the arts, was very much behind it as well. That launched us into a six-month effort to sell it across the city. Fortunately, with the mayor’s backing, people agreed to it and understood it would make the city a better place to live. It was very trying because people were just eager to get things back to normal, and they had not recognized that the commute patterns and the way people traveled had changed. What they saw was that the auto traffic coming off of the Embarcadero Freeway, feeding Chinatown, feeding North Beach really had passed away. They weren’t the big drivers as they had been, tourism was more important than suburban visitors. There were a lot of technical challenges, however. We were successful in getting it torn down, and that led to other pieces of remnant freeway throughout the city being removed to get the city back together. Now when you go to the Embarcadero in San Francisco and you see the historic trolley, you can see the ships coming in and out. It all came out of the efforts of AIA San Francisco and its members with an idea. You moved to a national forum. How did that happen? What did you learn from that? I rose through the ranks in San Francisco to become president and became more engaged with AIA California Council (CC) as a result of that leadership. Paul Welsh, Hon. AIA, who was the executive director for many years of AIA CC, was very adept at leading the volunteers. Paul had been the director at the state level for the licensing board before joining AIA. He knew the profession very well and also understood that it was the voice of the architects out in the community that made the most sense. He was also very adept at spotting people and helping put them in positions where they could influence the course of events. While I was coming up through the ranks, I went to my first national convention conference in Boston. This was at the time that the Presidio at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula was being integrated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. AIA San Francisco and California Council had put forth a resolution for AIA National to endorse that process. We didn’t have a large contingent of San Franciscans at that Boston convention. At the California caucus, the day of the annual business meeting, where we were going to be talking about these resolutions, the president of the California Council asked, “Who’s going to speak on behalf of the resolution?” I’m just sitting there since it’s my first time. I’m just a pup. And Paul just goes, “RK is from San Francisco; he’ll do it.” And I was like, “Who, me? Are you kidding?” And so, with like 15 minutes of American Conservatory Theatre 13
prep, I found myself at the mic, arguing in my two minutes for passage of the resolution, which was successfully adopted. And the Presidio is now a wonderful piece of San Francisco’s public open spaces. I went through the chairs and was president of AIA San Francisco in 2000 and then was elected to the executive committee as vice president for practice at the California Council. I continued to push with the practice management technical side of things, but also engaged in the other pieces, which then led to the election as regional rep for California Council on the National Board. California, having the largest number of architects in the country, had multiple seats at that time on the Board. I was the junior guy, but we also had a long tradition of a number of presidents of the Institute. Those players took me under their wing and helped me understand the bigger the stage that you have, the bigger your opportunity to influence things: rules, tax credits, legislation, as well as business opportunities. At the same time, I was also representing Gensler on the International Alliance for Interoperable Board (IAI). The IAI was focused on technology adoption in the profession, the integration in the practice of technology and the need for us to communicate across platforms, not be siloed. This opened up a whole group of software providers that I got to collaborate with. Being on the AIA National Executive Committee, I brought some things of that discussion to AIA that helped move things along. One of the more significant outcomes of the nexus between AIA and IAI came when I got a phone call from a woman who was working in the office of the chief architect for GSA: Gertraud Breitkopf, who was an architect. She explained that she was working on a committee for the Construction Users Roundtable, which is a group of big national firms that have multiple sites, multiple projects and a lot of contractor participation. They were trying to understand why architects’ and engineers’ drawings were so bad. I started to quiz her on how they knew as a committee that the documents were bad. Well, cost overruns, budget busts, schedule extensions, performance issues with materials, change orders — the usual stuff. Through the course of the conversation, I tried to figure out from her why, when these things happen, if they experience other things, like if they make a major decision to move a department that has different performance requirements across the building, how that might lead to additional cost or delays in the schedule? Or if they insisted that we use a certain material and then it failed to perform even though they told us to use it, it is still our fault. Right? I said, “Look, I don’t agree with your premise, but here’s what I can do. I can get together architects and engineers and the software guys. You can bring some owners and subcontractors together, and let’s do a little workshop.” There were about 20 people in the room, equally split between the owner/contractor side and the design/professional software side. We started going through these issues with the group. Patrick MacLeamy, FAIA, chair of HOK and chair of the International Alliance for Interoperability North American Component, did a great job of bringing brief case studies of projects they had done for governmental entities around the country. Six of them were design-bid-build, and six of them were negotiated contracts. He was able to illustrate for them the differences in terms of budget conformance, schedule conformance, performance, and all that kind of stuff. After about two or three hours, I started to see the lights go on over the contractors and the owners’ heads until, finally, one of them said, “Okay, you’re telling us that the way we’re asking you to do your work is creating outcomes we don’t want?” Yes, that is exactly the point. Out of that conversation, we came to some conclusions: The way you’re asking us to work around liability issues means that I can’t bring all my knowledge to this conversation because my practice liability insurance limits me, and you’re not trusting me in terms of these pieces of information. What contract formats and decision processes will allow us to be more engaged? And then you bring us budgets that are often unrealistic. You don’t want to modify your program to align with your budget, nor increase your budget to get your program. So, we need to have more upfront conversations about how we set the parameters for the exercise rather than just leaping in, and then we’re going to make it all work out. And at the end of the day, when we as architects succeed, you’re going to succeed as a business. And when you succeed, we succeed. The outgrowth of it was that we need to have an environment where we’re going to agree not to sue each other. The design professionals are willing to put some skin in the game. I’ll put part of my profit at risk to have a seat at the table to help determine the budget. We’re going to share information more regularly rather than a weekly project meeting. Let’s cohabitate so that I’ve got the contractor and all the engineers and you right at the table to solve a problem now, not wait for next week and lose a week’s production. That was the beginning of the Surviving Members of the Embarcadero Team (LR), Tom Lollini, FAIA, RK Stewart, FAIA, Bruce Race, FAIA, FAPA, Clark Manus, FAIA
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) discussion. We had two white papers that we built under the aegis of the Construction Owners Roundtable. Having the software guys there at the table was great in terms of being able to talk about the things that the software could do but were being inhibited by certain regulatory environmental decisions. I was on the executive committee of AIA National at the time, so I was able to bring this discussion to the Board, and the Board got behind it. As luck would have it, the chair of the AIA Contract Documents Committee was Phil Bernstein, FAIA, who, after a long career with Cesar Pelli, Phil had joined Autodesk as their lead VP for the AutoCAD product and then the Revit product. I went to Phil and said, “We need some pieces of the puzzle in the realm of contract documents that go together to help give our practitioners guidance.” Phil was able to harness the Contract Documents crew to come up with the first outline specs and the contract templates that could start to guide this IPD conversation. When I became president of the Institute in 2007, one of the things that I was able to launch was the first suite of IPD documents. That’s now widely recognized, widely used, but there is still skepticism, particularly on the owner’s side, on some of these things. But the success stories, particularly with healthcare projects coming in under budget and under schedule with great performance were really gratifying. As AIA president at the national level, you’ve got the bully pulpit to advance issues you wish to highlight. You still have your own time because there are other people who are working on other things the Institute is pursuing whose efforts you can support. I chose to use my voice around sustainability issues. In 2006-07, we were still in the early days with LEED. There were a number of opportunities that came up on Capitol Hill to influence policy. I got to know Ed Mazria, FAIA. I was in an airport someplace in 2006, and that Metropolis edition with the rolls of blueprints and the smoke coming out on the cover caught my eye. I struck up a conversation with Ed and was able to help him move some things along to get LEED, more familiar with the energy issues. At that time, it was more about designing for low energy use index numbers versus tracking the actual performance of the completed project in CBECS. I had a couple of interesting, raucous conversations with LEED leadership about whether it is CBECS or it is ANSI. CBECS! I want to see the real-world performance! The energy bill in 2007 was working its way through Congress, and our AIA national advocacy team was able to get some provisions into the bill, around the tax credits. Many of us here in Utah take advantage of the 179d tax credit available in that legislation. I had the opportunity to testify before both the House and the Senate Subcommittee on Energy. One of my proudest moments is getting those provisions included. I got to participate in the Solar Decathlon in D.C. on the Mall. As wonderful as that was, there were many other gratifying components of that year. It was the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Institute. I focused my time on getting to as many local and state components as I could to help them celebrate the 150th anniversary. We had a whole series of events. We did Blueprint for America, which was getting local components to look at what they could do in their community to set the stage for the next 150 years. We did a national survey of America’s favorite buildings. When that came out, I got a chance to promote that in print media, on the radio, on TV and by doing a press conference in one of the House office buildings thanks to Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Oregon. Then on April 13, which is the anniversary of the founding of the Institute, 13 architects in New York City went down to City Hall and incorporated AIA, and then went to Delmonico’s for lunch. The Board was able to have a big celebratory dinner at Delmonico’s on April 13; that was great fun. The Empire State Building came out on top as the number one building in America. I wrote a letter to its owners congratulating them. They said, “Next time you’re in New York, we’ll go through the building.” So, as part of that April 13 celebration, as I was in New York, I visited the Empire State Building. As you come in the front door, they have a big showcase trophy case; there was my letter blown up to poster size! We went all the way up and all the way down through the building. But then the drop-the-mic moment was at our 2007 convention in June in San Antonio. There was the Investiture of the new class of the College’s Fellows. We did it in front of the Alamo at sundown, which was pretty spectacular. But it was the last day of the convention: the final keynote, that was my highlight. I was pushing the sustainability issues as far as I could. I brainstormed with the two folks, Gwen Dakis, FAIA, and Carl Meyer, FAIA, who were the convention and education co-chairs, about who our speakers would be. And I said, “Al Gore, I want Al Gore.” We talked to our friends at McGraw-Hill and Arch Record, and they said, “Yeah, we can cover that fee. We can take care of this.” Now, how do we get to Gore? We were going through the speakers’ bureaus, his office and friends on Capitol Hill … we really were having a hard time making the connection. Gwen’s mom was a Chautauqua person. Chautauqua Conference is a big deal in Upstate New York. One day, Gwen gave me a call and said, “I was just off the phone with my mom. She is at Chautauqua and Al Gore’s there.” I said, “She’s got to Olympia Centre Neiman Marcus 15
go get him.” We called her mom back and said, “We want him to speak at our event. We need you to get in front of him.” The next day, Gwen called me back: it worked! Gwen’s mom went and ran Al Gore down and said, “My daughter’s an architect. They’re doing this thing on sustainability. They really want you to come.” He turned to his assistant and said, “Let’s talk to these people.” We struck a deal, and he was on board. We announced it. As with many things around sustainability issues, there was some polarization. For every person who said, “That’s great. It’s exciting to see Gore there.” I got two of “I’m never coming to a convention again. How can you politicize the AIA? How can you politicize architecture? I’m dropping my membership,” which was a little disheartening, but I tried to keep a good face on it. And I tried to say, “We’ll miss you. You can come back any time.” The day was quite exciting. The CEO and I were able to spend a couple of hours with him over lunch. Whenever I’m dealing with an elected official, one of the things I always try and finish the conversation with is “What can we do to help you? What are you working on now?” Al Gore said, “I’m just finishing this book called ‘The Assault on Reason.’” That book foresaw many of the current issues we face, including challenges to authorities and questioning science. Al Gore was adamant that he wanted to spend time with the student organization. We sat in with him. The AIA president said, “Here’s this forum of 50 students. Do you want to just chat? I’ve got some questions I could ask.” Gore was great: “I want to hear your questions.” He’s having this conversation with them, and my phone starts going off with texts because the fire marshal was very concerned about how many people we were going to have in the room. They were counting very carefully and had held everybody outside the room and weren’t letting people in. The people were starting to get a little angry. I excused myself to try and help resolve the issue. We finally did, and we packed the room at 3,000. Not everybody was able to get in. There were some disappointed folks. I go out, and I introduce him. We shake hands, and I turn Al Gore loose. I’m in the green room and as nervous as a cat, thinking, “Wow, what’s going to happen?” He starts with this stump speech that I’d seen on YouTube, which is hilarious. Then as his talk went on, some of the things that he and I talked about at lunch started to come through. He’d say, “You guys are doing this, but we can take it here.” He was putting a challenge out to us. And I was so happy, I had tears in my eyes. The audience was just jacked up. They were going crazy. And I was like, “Now I’m going to have to go back out there and wrap this thing up?” I’m not exactly shy about being a provocateur, but this crowd reaction got me pretty nervous. He wrapped up, and I went out and thanked him. Then I proceeded to close the convention with my comments. I challenged the people in the room to go back to their practices, not to business as usual, but with a new perspective on what the potential of architecture is and what we can do, not just around building context and building history, but changing the planet. We are leaving the artifacts of our culture, and that’s an important piece of what we do, but also it is our goal to help save the planet. We are the only species on earth that knowingly, willingly fouls the nest. It continues to amaze me that we don’t have a more aggressive, more intelligent approach to what’s happening around us with the built environment. And so, having done my part, I left the stage and started to look at what’s next, just to continue to mentor, continue to try and learn and teach every day, and do what I can to bring us all along to a better-preferred future. What advice would you give to a young architect? The first thing is it’s not about you. It’s about the good you can do and should do with the skills and gifts that you’ve been given. It’s about the people who are going to inhabit whatever buildings you put together and also the people who just walk by on the street. You’re creating context. You’re creating history. It’s about getting things done. So, learn to build buildings. Learn what makes them tick. Learn building science. Know how to make a better building. And then I think it’s about celebrating the human condition. Just recognize that what you’re doing is going to have a ripple effect for 60 or 70 years; that building is going to be there. So don’t take it lightly. Two generations from now, somebody else is going to be inhabiting that space. Get your license. Get your license. Get your license. One of the things to recognize is, according to NCARB, there are 120,000 architects in the country. How many lawyers are there in the country? I don’t think the ratio looks good for us. It’s not all about you. It’s about what you leave behind. Think about those people, particularly those coming up behind you and how you mentored them and helped them to understand what they can do and should do as an architect.
INTERVIEW BY FRAN PRUYN, CPSM Key Takeaways • Integrity, environmental responsibility, collaborative culture and intentional growth are GSBS’s hallmarks. • The firm embraces a unique, interdisciplinary mix of design and consulting services. • Inclusive and diverse by design, GSBS employees come from 16 countries. GSBS was founded in January 1978. Four highly respected and charismatic architects formed the firm, which has now grown to nearly 100 people, with services that include architecture, community planning, landscape architecture, interior design, sustainability, graphic design, experiential design and economic consulting. The firm’s portfolio is extensive, and they have been known from the very early days for environmentally responsible design, the quality of documents, inventive design solutions, business savvy, community involvement, and involvement in local and national AIA offices and movements. Since ‘78, the firm has grown deliberately and steadily, with a clear focus on company culture, inclusion and professional integrity. That has meant never missing a payroll, never stiffing a consultant and not stepping on anyone to make it happen. 50 Years from Start-Up to Respected Firm As Mike Stransky, FAIA, remembered it in his “Legends” interview: “The work was grueling at times trying to get the work done, trying to figure out how to get the new job to keep a flow of projects into the office. Those are struggles, but those are all just meaningful moments in your career. You just find a way and make it happen. “I knew Abe (Gillies, who passed away in 2022) in school. He was one year ahead of me. He had a partner — Bob Brotherton. They were looking for help, and I said, ‘I am interested, but not just in a job.’ Within a year, I had bought into the firm. He plowed the ground; I joined the team. “We did everything. I ran projects. Abe ran the business and ran projects too. I started doing the marketing; I was the outside guy. Abe said, ‘You be AIA for the firm, I’ll take care of this, I’ll be the ballast.’ A couple of years later, through AIA, I got to know David. I knew Steve before, a little bit — he was a neighbor of Abe’s. We brought our firms and talents together. By ‘86, we got all the initials in there.” Salt Lake Public Safety Building 17
In his interview, David Brems, FAIA, recalled: “I had started my own firm. Right next door to us was Ann-Marie Boyden and et al, and et al hosted the AIA office. I went through all of the offices of the Salt Lake Chapter and AIA Utah, working with Mike Stransky and Stephen Smith. We’d have breakfast once a week at the Hotel Utah and talk about what we were doing and the profession, and what the future looked like. We decided to merge our two small firms — David Brems + Associates and Gillies Stransky — together. Abe Gillies ran the office and put out quality documents, and Mike got us through any door marketing the firm. I love to design, work in the office and work on the projects with our clients. It wasn’t very long after we merged that we added Steve Smith and became Gillies Stransky Brems Smith.” In an interview with Stephen Smith, FAIA, he said: “When Abe Gillies and Bob Brotherton started Gillies Brotherton in 1978, I said to Abe, ‘I want to come work for you,’ and he said, ‘No, I like you as my friend. We were neighbors. Maybe someday.’ In 1986, Abe called me and said, ‘We’re talking with David Brems about bringing him in and forming a firm with a broader practice. Now, I would like you to join me as my partner.’ Bingo. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to do. Mike and Abe had a very strong practice in industrial and some institutional work. David had a portfolio with private development, and I had some good planning experience. We thought that was a good, healthy merger of broader market areas as well as broader personality. We’re very different people and it turned out to be a very positive group in spite of our idiosyncrasies.” Broad Mix of Services Defines GSBS As such, GSBS has been an interdisciplinary design firm for a long time. As soon as Smith brought in planning as a service, they began to market themselves as a multifaceted service organization. Brems said, “It seemed like a natural idea to integrate — to complement each other. Over the years, we have identified key people which created a practice that is wide and broad. GSBS always has been and always will reflect the people who are here.” And the very assortment of personalities and skills that was the kernel of the culture of GSBS is the driver of the 2025 iteration of the design firm. I met with a group of its owners and employees who strongly believe that they have to design as a choir full of strong but very different voices to cultivate the best ideas and, when refined, serve the client with the best possible project. Interestingly enough, the group didn’t talk much about their project successes (and there have been many), but rather their process — what it is like to work in a firm that is not very hierarchical and where good ideas are entertained from whomever they come. Three Factors Inspire the Firm’s Approach Eric White, director of marketing and business development, says that GSBS’s vision is based on three pillars that have become their decision-making litmus test: 1. Their people: They have great jobs, their people are compensated well, and they have a work-life balance. 2. Design: They have the right tools and the right processes to generate a great approach. The product has to be of great quality. 3. Business: They are smart about growing a healthy business. They are very careful about how they take care of the business. Of these, people are their lynchpin. Snowbird Summit Lodge 18 REFLEXION
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