It’s official. This May, Kansas State University’s College of Architecture and Design is holding their first Public Interest Architecture Design class and it’s official that I’ll be teaching it! Ever since graduating from the program in 2005, I have been exploring the field of public interest design through my work in Asia, Africa, and now through affordable sustainability. Wishing I would have had more exposure to this growing sector of architecture while in school and also looking for an opportunity to teach, I proposed the idea of an introductory class and it was whole heartedly embraced by alma mater.

I’ve begun putting a website together for our class to help organize the content and resources I’ve collected as well as give some background to the incredible guest Skypers I have lined up to speak. Please check it out and pass it on to whomever you know who might be interested.

http://publicinterestarchitecture.tumblr.com/

And if you’re in the little apple (aka Manhattan Kansas) anytime May 14-24, I’d love to share a Boulevard at Rock a Belly’s and catch up in our old stomping grounds.

Association of Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS)
Integrative Pathways, Vol 34, No. 1, William H. Newell Editor

Emerging Scholar’s Forum Introduction:
Interdisciplinarity involves a continual oscillation between theory and practice, between the mindset of the interdisciplinarian and application to complex, real world conditions. Beyond engaging in multiple disciplinary perspectives, interdisciplinary practitioners often must incorporate the interests of diverse stakeholders in planning, designing and executing projects. This installment of the Emerging Scholars Column offers examples of integrative techniques can play a part in the field of architecture. The process described here illustrates the kind of power the interdisciplinary approach can have in solving critical problems in the built world, a process that could be productively generalized to projects in other fields. The author, Jill Kurtz, received her Bachelors architecture from Kansas State University. She spent the past seven years as a volunteer designer with several organizations in India, Uganda, and Sudan. She began a sustainability consulting firm three years ago, and serves as Board President for reBuild Sudan, which is building one of the first schools in South Sudan since the referendum, in partnership with local communities and companies. In 2009, she began a Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies degree from Union University on their Mill Valley, CA campus where she was able to further explore the theoretical background and implication of architecture on a culture. This article was taken from her capstone project presented in May of 2011.
—James Welch IV
Contributing Editor, Emerging Scholars Forum
Assistant Professor, IDS, University of Texas at Arlington
welchj4@uta.edu

INTEGRATIVE DESIGN: Rethinking the Way We Build

By Jill Sornson Kurtz

The complex problems of the world today cannot be solved by a single discipline or addressed by a single profession. Interdisciplinary studies have arisen in our education system to “gain coherent understanding of complex issues that are increasingly beyond the ability of any single discipline to address comprehensively or resolve adequately” (Repko, 2008, p. 3). A similar shift needs to occur to address the complex issues that arise within the discipline and practice of architecture. The following four principles are essential to creating an integrative approach to architecture: alignment around a common purpose, understanding of context, commitment to collaboration, and improvement through iteration.

BACKGROUND: As mementoes of the assembly line approach of the past, the last century’s buildings stock epitomizes the industrialized era in which it was produced. Isolating energy systems and siloing disciplines from each other for efficiency’s sake has resulted in a current building stock that is anything but efficient (7group & Reed, pp. 9-12). Existing buildings use more than 40% of the United State’s energy (DOE, 2011), and are often full of inefficient energy systems, generate unnecessary waste, and do not promote occupant health.

“The biggest single change that needs to be made in the building profession is not the invention of a new technology, but a change in the mindset” (McLennan, 2004, 88). We must not only learn methods and create tools for integration, but also learn to think integratively. “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them,” Einstein famously observed. In order to solve the complex problem of wasteful and inefficient buildings, the industry must first transform its thinking to embrace integration.

In the profit driven, litigation-saturated field of construction, however, new approaches to building design are not easily adopted. Therefore, not-for-profit, public-interest and humanitarian project teams are better positioned to adopt an integrative approach to building projects. This essay describes four principles that embody an integrative way of thinking and how they have been applied in the non-profit context.

1) PURPOSE: Alignment around the “Why,” not the “What.” The ultimate success factor for any integrative approach is to begin with alignment around a common purpose. A client’s purpose is the underlying reason for a building, not the building itself. Integrative project teams and clients  must shift their initial focus from the “what” of the building’s form and function to the “why” behind the building in the first place. Though this may be an obvious practice, its simplicity is easy to overlook. Non-profit and public-interest projects are able to embody this principle quickly because they are organized around a mission and highly prioritize the “why” of their projects.

In a hypothetical example, an Indian NGO approached a public interest architect about helping them design a large group home for the orphans in their community. Before rushing into the design of the orphanage, the integrative team asked, “What is the purpose of this project?” Through a series of questions, the NGO realized all they wanted to do was show the abandoned children they are loved. Knowing the failure of so many other orphanages, they decided building another orphanage might not be the best approach to their purpose. Instead, they decided to create a local adoption program and build a community center where they could serve the new adopting families.

2) CONTEXTUAL: No Part in Isolation. Winston Churchill once said, “First we shape our buildings, then they shape us.” It is therefore critical for integrative teams to first understand the context within which they are designing so they produce buildings that are climatically and socially appropriate. Respect for the uniqueness and a search for the identity of each place will honor each community, and the buildings will, in turn, naturally fit within the larger fabric of society. Understanding local building material availability, common construction methods, and cultural norms help integrative teams see their building as a living part that influences and is influenced by larger nested systems. Public-interest teams are well positioned to implement a contextual approach if they are already embedded or organized from within the community and facilitate local input and ownership.

A good example of the power of contextual understanding is in the 100-acre “sustainable community” master plan in a Haitian town just north of Port-au-Prince. Looking to address the housing needs of the 20,000 earthquake refugees now living in their land, a Haitian NGO partnered with Engineering Ministries International (eMi) to design a master plan for their site. Though their immediate need was for housing, the real cry for Haiti’s rebuilding process is jobs. Instead of seeing job creation as someone else’s responsibility, the integrative team worked with the NGO and the local community to approach the plan holistically, discovering and applying the resources the community had to rebuild itself economically. Without this contextual approach, eMi might may have provided a design to house the displaced Hatians, but they would be left jobless and without a sustainable way of providing for their own futures.

3) COLLABORATIVE: Shifting from Multi-Disciplinary to Interdisciplinary. If a multidisciplinary approach offers a variety of perspectives on a problem, then collaboration implies a commitment to the hard work it takes to integrate such varied perspectives into a comprehensive solution. This type of integration is a deeply participatory process that seeks to reconcile conflicts between the perspectives until the sum is larger than its individual parts. Partnerships and new technologies might attempt to facilitate collaboration, but they do not create it; a shift in the mind-set of individual contributors is required to realize the synergistic value generated when things are done collaboratively. Public-interest projects are often full of value driven team members who recognize they can accomplish more together than any single individual can on their own.

After winning a prestigious TED prize in 2006, Architecture for Humanity was granted one wish to change the world (TED, 2006). With their wish, they launched the Open Architecture Network, an open-source website whose objective is to create a truly collaborative online community and gathering place for those dedicated to improving the built environment. Architects, designers, engineers as well as community leaders, government agencies, healthcare workers, and educators are invited to collaborate on projects and share their expertise. Currently, there are over 2,000 projects available for review, critique, and refinement. Architecture for Humanity does not intend to replace the individual roles of architects and engineers but rather to create a place that allows designers to collaborate in a whole new way.

4) ITERATIVE: Continuous Development. An integrative design process can occur only if the project team is willing to explore, test and refine its project’s solutions, repeating the process again and again until a specific result is achieved. With each cycle, better understanding is gained, giving clarity for the best solutions for each aspect of a project. This iterative process allows team members to step back from the individual parts of the project to understand how the parts relate to the whole. Public-interest projects often have an abundance of time, as opposed to money, in their organizational accounts. Team members in public-interest projects bring an openness to learn and the humility to ask questions, which helps to drive the evolution of the project through each iteration to an optimized culmination.

In 2009, I co-led a team of 11 designers and consultants into what is now South Sudan to design a prototype school with the hopes of building many more in the region in the future. We took advantage of every learning opportunity and applied our knowledge to our design proposal. After our short trip, we had created a design that best addressed the context and purpose of the project. We returned back with a wealth of contextual knowledge of the site, material availability and specific project challenges we wanted to address. Through extensive research, we were able to address the site’s unusual soil density and annual flooding with screw piers, a simple but often under-utilized technology. By applying computer modeling, we were able to predict and adjust wall openings to take advantage of natural ventilation and daylight. Three years later our NGO, Rebuild Sudan, is just beginning construction but the school has evolved much beyond our original plan. We plan to employ this iterative process with each school project, by learning from previous experience and applying each insight to the next project.

Buildings are one of the most permanent things each generation leaves for the next. This post-industrial society has inherited not only a deteriorating building portfolio but also a deteriorated building process. If the field of architecture is to evolve, design professionals must learn to build differently. But before they can build differently, they must learn to think differently. Embodying these four principles and embracing a truly integrative way of thinking will allow practitioners to holistically address the complex problems facing not only the built environment but any other complex question requiring an interdisciplinary perspective.

References

7group & Reed, B. (2009). The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Bell, B. & Wakeford W. (Eds.) (2008). Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. New York: Metropolis Books.
Department of Energy (2011). Buildings Energy Data Book: 1.1 Buildings Sector Energy Consumption. http://buildingsdatabook.eren.doe.gov/docs/xls_pdf/1.1.1.pdf (Accessed May 2, 2011).
McLennan, Jason F. (2004). The Philosophy of Sustainable Design. Kansas City: Ecotone LLC.
Repko, Allen F. (2008). Interdisciplinary Research. Thousands Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.
Ted Prize (2006). Wishes Big Enough to Change the World: 2006 Winners. http://www.tedprize.org/2006-winners/ (Accessed April 25, 2011).

Suggestions for further reading:

Cary, J. & Public Architecture (Ed.) (2010). The Power of Pro-Bono. New York: Metropolis Books.
Inns, T. (2007). Designing for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Questions and Insights. Aldershot: Gower.
IPD Definition Task Group, American Institute of Architects California Council (2007). Integrated Project Deliver: A Working Definition Version 1. Sacramento, CA: AIA California Council.
Parr A. & Zaretsky M. (Eds.) (2011). New Directions in Sustainable Design. New York: Routledge.

As a high school student junior, I took drafting classes so I could get a job at a local architecture firm. Through this early exposure to the field and because of the thoughtful mentorship of coworkers, I excitedly entered Kansa State University with a realistic perspective of the work that awaited me after school. At university, I earned the respect and trust of my classmates and represented them on Student Advisory and Planning boards. I started a community group within our college to bring people together for encouragement and mentorship across classes and disciplines in our department. I graduated near the top of my class and became the school’s first LEED AP with hopes of leading efforts by our alumni in issues of sustainability. Having worked as an intern at the same architecture firm to put myself through school, I also recognized areas of improvement for IDP and partnered with Associate Dean Wendy Ornelas to compile a comprehensive annotated bibliography of IDP resources. This research won me the opportunity to present at the 2005 Internship Conference where the top interns from around the country gathered to discuss ways we had improved the IDP process for our communities and how that can affect larger policy changes. Our work eventually led to some of the changes in the current IDP system.

After I graduated, I made a choice to devote my architectural career to social justice through sustainable development. Only 80% of the world has access to architects; where architects are needed most, they are often present least. Public Health and Public Law are established career paths for such professions, but currently no such track exists in the field of architecture; I intend to change this. My purpose has moved beyond commercial buildings for the world’s wealthy and entered into the humble shelters of the world’s most forgotten where sustainability is a means of survival, not a plaque on the wall. This decision has taken me out of a traditional firm and sent me to the wilderness of South Sudan and Uganda, the rickshaws and alleys of India, but also to the NGO capital of the world, San Francisco. I volunteered for a year as a designer for the poor of India, currently serve as board president for an organization building a prototype peace school in the war torn state of South Sudan, and started my own company to make sustainability consulting affordable and accessible to all clients.

Though I have always participated in professional organizations such as the AIA and the USGBC, I have found my greatest influence has been in the communities I live in and the work that I have done. Offering my skills as a designer and collaborator I have affected positive change for the profession of architecture in both my local Berkeley communities but also million dollar sustainability initiatives in Silicon Valley’s top echelon which influence statewide policy.

Currently I am preparing for my largest contribution back to the profession through teaching. I have been given the opportunity to develop and teach Kansas State’s first course for graduate students on Public Interest Architecture. The class will focus on maximizing a project’s positive impact on community it serves through partnerships as well as showing students opportunities to address some of the world’s critical issues faced by under served populations through design.

It’s been nearly 20 years since I first discovered my love for architecture and have been on a journey ever since far different from anything I could imagine. Though my career path has often been described as unprecedented, I have chosen each step carefully. I have invested and developed the community and profession around me, but also focused on giving back through teaching and mentorship to others what I’ve learned along the way. As a self-employed individual, pursuing registration is not a choice anyone else can make for me or provide to me. I am intentionally choosing to complete licensure because I know it will expand my influence and open even more significant opportunities to be a catalyst for positive change in the built environment; I have only just begun to contribute towards the field of architecture.

Statement of Contribution prepared for the AIA Jason Pettigrew Memorial Fund ARE Scholarship, 2012

i visited the Cathedral of Christ the Light (click on photos in the gallery on the left of the page) a few weeks back to hear the architect from SOM tell about the project. it’s the first time i’ve gone to a lecture about a building in the building and it really got me thinking about what a different experience that was. rather than show photos of the 4 stories of wooden slats, he just pointed to them. when he spoke of the white light panels at the entrance and the ceiling, we turned around to see them. and when we told of the story of the relief sculpture of Jesus 2 stories high at the front and center of the room, He (as in Jesus) was already looking right at us. unfortunately, it was also night… which made any mention of warm, indirect lighting, or sunlight patterns painted on the floor an architectural taunt.

i think my critique of the space was the most authentic it could be. i wasn’t visiting the building later and trying to recall his spoken intent. no, i was there process as he was communicated. it truly was a unique situation and one i hope to replicate as often as i can.

if ever you’re in the bay area and i’m not enough excuse for you already, or are around but want an architecture immersion, let me know. i have an phenomenal place in mind for us to explore.

cross it off of my list of things to do in life.
been there, done that; i’ve seen the taj mahal.
what did i think? you may ask.
overrated. i would reply.
i know that sounds arrogant, it’s one of the world’s seven wonders.
yes, it’s beautiful. it’s a brilliant white marble tomb.
the finest example of mughal architecture,
combining elements of persian, turkish, indian, and islamic architctural styles.
it’s carefully crafted details, standing majestically in front of the blue sky.
but still overrated.
one of the earth’s modern wonders?
come on now.

maybe i was tainted by the city of agra…
45% of the city involved in tourism. money can corrupt a place.
i was getting fired up at our taxi driver as he kept taking us to see local ‘art forms.’
a.k.a. over-priced stores in hopes of getting a kick-back.
my dad had to cool me down.
thankfully, i didn’t have a t-square in my hand. [see why here]

maybe it was because i was sick…
yes. i got the stomach bug again.
fever, headache, bathroom breaks, the whole bit.
i had no choice, i had to use the tap water to brush my teeth.
i think i should have opted for the bad breath.

maybe it was because this isn’t the india i love…
tourists everywhere in their mini skirts and short shorts.
put some clothes on! i wanted to say. we don’t dress like that here.

this isn’t india, i wished i could explain to them…
meet the people in the villages or sit around a fire as they play the jimbay.
find food for 1/5 the price you are paying and 5 times as good.
drink a chai with the locals in the morning and make chapatis with the women for dinner.
visit the fish markets as the catch comes in and hike in the himalayas.
this building, this place, this isn’t india.
but as you see in from the outside, that’s all you know of this country.
you come to take your photo in front it’s white mass.
you return to your home with a sense of accomplishment,
but you’re not much different from when you left.
see the india i’ve seen and see if you can leave the same way you came.
try to love the way you did before, give the way you did, live the way you did.
not possible.

bill clinton once said,
there are only two kinds of people in the world,
those who have seen the taj mahal and those who haven’t.
maybe.
or maybe not