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
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