AIArchitect

by Rex L. Carpenter, AIA, LEED AP
Vice President, HKS Architects Inc., Dallas 

Your poll for last week was timely as I prepare to send my son to Illinois Institute of Technology to begin his studies in architecture. I find myself at times wanting to be the one going, full of hope, excitement and more than a little trepidation to study in Crown Hall, live in Helmut Jahn’s dormitory and play in the Rem Koolhaas Student Center. As a parent, I want him to be successful, as an architect I have great expectations and can’t help but wonder at the comments from my fellow professionals: “Couldn’t talk him out of it?”

My education at Texas Tech University prepared me for what has been an almost 30-year career—very rewarding personally, professionally, and financially. I can only hope he is as well prepared for a rapidly changing profession. We toured several schools as father and son, and I marveled at the breadth of each new approach and excitement of faculty. As we in the profession continue to debate architecture education, I believe the program he selected offers an opportunity to learn how a building goes together, how to work with others, and to explore the profession.

So, do I want to go back? With his opportunity and knowing what I know now … maybe a little (…but I’d have to learn AutoCAD).

What do you think?

by Zach Mortice
AIArchitect Assistant Editor

Architecture, it has been said, is an old man’s game. If you get something built before you start receiving unsolicited AARP newsletters in the mail, whoopee, treat yourself to an ice cream cone. This isn’t likely to change soon. We are still securely in the hands of members of Tom Brokaw’s unremittingly lionized Greatest Generation and the eternal cultural behemoth/punching bag known as the Baby Boomers. What is new (as evidenced from Marsha Littell’s piece this week in AIArchitect) is the hand-wringing about how to make the newest generation of architects entering the profession happy.

Unceremoniously dubbed “Generation Y” and born roughly between Grenada and Monica Lewinsky, we (yup—life without cell phones is a foggy memory for me) are what happened when the Baby Boomers started applying their wrecking ball talents of demographic reformation to starting families. As Littell mentions, our parents were more likely to be financially well-off, and showered us with praise and affluence while carting us off to oboe lessons, fencing practice, and transcendental meditation sessions with our guru. We were told we could do anything and were plunged into everything. As hilarious as it sounds, we absolutely believe life is a complete meritocracy because that’s what Daddy told us on our 16th birthday when he handed us the keys to a brand new Volvo. We find unfairness disorienting and quite frankly unpleasant.

by Lonnie Anderson, AIA

The 35W bridge collapse was a tragedy that caused us locals much shock, grief, fear, and uncertainty, and not just in the hearts of Minnesotans, but throughout the rest of the country and beyond. Planning for a replacement bridge has already been rapidly implemented. But more can be done to monument this tragedy and forever remember those lost in the collapse.

Developers are already vying for the valuable land around this river community, but I believe it would be a wise decision to lease the airspace over the new bridge structure for an office, hotel, condominium, and restaurant destination, with parking, where profits could help offset the bridge redevelopment costs.  Examples of this are in Louisville, where they built a large museum plaza on the Ohio River and added commercial components and a parking ramp in order to compensate museum costs. Also, of course, there is the Freedom Tower being erected in New York City to replace the fallen World Trade Center. That too is significant in stature, design, and symbolism.

I envision an urban design that could give Minnesotans the opportunity to show what can be done in the face of tragedy and set precedent for modern architecture in Minnesota - buildings that can be functional and environmentally friendly, and that can be magnificent as well as incorporate an economic and adaptive use of airspace.  I have sketched a concept for a skyscraper cradled between two enormous and breathtaking wish-bones supporting eight-story space frames which hold wind turbines, capable of generating plentiful amounts of clean power from the Venturi effects of wind streaming down the Mississippi. The wishbone frames are concrete helical ramps cast on bedrock to withstand Herculean weights thrust down from the skyscraper above.

As a senior project architect, and graduate of University of Minnesota, I have been designing buildings for 35 years, and as a proud Minnesotan saddened and stricken by the collapse of the bridge I used to commute over every day, I ask why not design a multi-use destination complex that WILL last into the next century, as a transcendent tribute to the victims, a means to support the redevelopment of the bridge, and to leave a legacy for future generations? Please consider my proposal and if you share my vision or have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

As summer draws so quickly to a close, there is still a sunny spot on our horizon. Beginning on Columbus Day and running through that next week, 20 interdisciplinary teams, including 3 from overseas, will come to the nation’s capital to construct their solar-powered, 800-square-foot homes complete with kitchens, laundry areas, and home offices. They will compete by living everyday lives (though not overnight—federal law prohibits sleeping on the Capital Mall where the solar city will be built).

The teams include architecture, engineering, business, and communications students who look back at the first two Solar Decathlons, held in 2002 and 2005 for inspiration and lessons learned. They must plan, design, publicize, fund, assemble, test, transport, and reassemble their solar-powered homes—an effort that, for most, began as soon as the last competition ended. The Department of Energy is so supportive of this endeavor now that they stepped it up from every three years to the current plan of holding the competition every two years.

It wasn’t always so.

The first competition was on a shoestring, with the sponsors (including the AIA) pretty much creating the rules as we went along. The second competition went much more smoothly. But one school’s faculty (a fairly large university in North Carolina) informed its student team that they had to be back on campus for exams or they would fail the semester, and they left their uncompleted house sitting abandoned throughout the competition.

There are sure to be slips and spills again this year, but with one exception. This technology is no longer bleeding edge, it is leading edge. And these students are doing more than learning. They are teaching—public tours are a large part of the event. Expect a tremendous turnout on the Mall this fall. Visit the Solar Decathlon Web site. And, if you can, drop by to see it live. It’s really fantastic.

What do you think?