doesn’t matter what the budget is; you have to do what’s right for the design. Okay, Rule Number One in public architecture, the design has to be right for the budget. That argument never works. It just doesn’t. First, we try to explain the value. We tell clients that there are thousands of good solutions, but they have to be good solutions for all the invested parties. We have to find two or three that we will show them. We often say we are showing you the dumb solution. This is the one you’ve seen before. It works. We would build it for you. It’s a very solid solution. Then usually, we like to show the solution that’s 180 degrees from that one, the one you never thought of. It still meets all the criteria. And maybe we’ll show the one or two in between. The important thing, especially working in a public capacity, is the designs that we propose have to be integrated, and they have to be holistic. That the design doesn’t just work really well as a classroom or other building type, it has to work from a cost standpoint as well, and it has to have the ability to relate to the people that are using it. If you don’t hit all those goals, you’re going to get thrown out. It doesn’t matter what you think. One mistake I see when I am on design juries or reviews is that an architect will have a really good idea, and they’ll show it to you three different ways. That’s a loser. Or the contrary is they’ll have one really good idea, and then they’ll have two that they don’t like, so they’ll draw them really ugly. That’s a loser, too. The client is going to pick the ugly one. How do you provide a number of design solutions for a client without blowing your design budget? That’s hard. In fact, when I’m working for the federal government, I’m regulated under the Brooks Act by how much I can charge them. So, we’ve learned to do it really efficiently. We learned a big thing working on the Oklahoma City Federal Building that replaced the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building after the terrorist bombing. The GSA asked us to engage with the survivors and city officials because it was such an emotionally and culturally difficult project. And we did a lot of things wrong. But we did develop this rich base of information and opinion. So we started to think that we should do this for every project. Over the years, we have developed a really robust set of tools to do engagement. I think it’s so interesting that a lot of clients hire us to do that in addition to design, they’re willing to pay for it as an outside service, especially communities, which are the ones who need it the most. To get the research done, to discover really innovative solutions: talk to people. What do you think is the most challenging right now for women architects? Things are changing. I’ve taught at IIT for 30-some years. Half of my classes are filled with women now. The place where people are still frustrated is getting to the level of firm ownership and firm leadership; women still lag in those areas. There’s still a lack of opportunity for women architects. You don’t get the opportunity because you don’t have a portfolio, and you don’t have a portfolio because you don’t get the opportunity. There are fewer ladders that are available to women. I hope that one of the things that my winning the gold medal changes is people’s perception. The past examples we have of women winning the gold medal are Julia Morgan — who has been deceased for 60 years — and the two medalists, very wonderful architects, but they’re married to their partners, which is a different experience than most women architects encounter. It is forward progress. In the 50s or 60s, you couldn’t 17
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