SCI-Arc Commencement Address - 09.2013
SCI-Arc is a unique place. SCI-Arc is an exception. SCI-Arc is an island, an ivory tower. It may be in the middle of downtown LA but it is off in its own world in so many important ways. SCI-Arc sets up its own rules to play by. It certainly sets up its own hours. SCI-Arc is focused on creating not consuming. SCI-Arc is a place apart. There is a ‘through the looking glass’ quality to the institution that is rather unique, disturbing and inspirational all at the same time.
As soon to be graduates, you know that SCI-Arc is made up of extremely dedicated and extremely talented designers. The faculty that teaches here, the critics that debate here and the architects that lecture here at SCI-Arc are some of, if not the best around. A roll call of the leaders of this school since its inception in 1972 is impressive: Ray Kappe, Michael Rotundi, Neil Denari, Eric Owen Moss. These are not your average architects and SCI-Arc is not your average school.
I attended the Marina del Rey version of the school, finishing just before the move to this now permanent home for the institution. Up until that point, most of my education had been on the East Coast. SCI-Arc was a major departure in location and attitude. SCI-Arc was then, and remains now, an outlier of sorts in the education of architects. While the school has ascended to the top rung of the various school rating lists, SCI-Arc has remained true to the original spirit enshrined in 72. This is a place that seeks to substantively and deeply challenge the conventions of the day; a place that remains tightly focused on the importance of design in improving the human experience. The SCI-Arc of 2013 is in many ways the same SCI-Arc of 1972.
SCI-Arc is at its best when advocating for the value of good design across all segments of our society. Too often, design is seen as accessible only to the well-heeled. Even with the false democratization and excessive consumerism of the mass design movement – as represented by Dwell Magazine, Houzz.com, et al – real design issues do not figure prominently enough in our nation’s conversation around the built environment. The values driving the design and construction marketplace today are first cost, utility and speed. To cite Vitruvius, ‘utilitas and firmitas’ are mandated but what happened the third leg of the Vitruvian stool? What happened to ‘venustas’, or delight? Too often it is not in the conversation.
We architects are responsible for all three of those dictates ... we are especially responsible for the last one, for delight. Delight – which I am using as a synonym for design - is the one that no one else is trained to create. It is the first thing that gets cut when, as it always does in construction, budgets become insufficient for the client’s initial aspiration. I sit on the LA Unified School District Bond Oversight Committee – a body charged with oversight of the nation’s largest ever public works program. We are on the tail end of an effort began in 1997 that has become a 30 billion dollar program. As the lone architect on the board – an unbelievable fact in and of itself – I am constantly running a rear guard action on behalf of delight. While I have not been able to redirect the effort entirely, I have made quality design and the value it brings to educating students an issue that the District must address. Architectural delight has a direct impact upon student achievement.
This is my message to you today; we, the guardians of delight, must talk more. We must speak more. We must talk more to those outside of our circle of fellow architects, artists, movie makers, fabricators, and the like. We must speak more to bureaucrats, to politicians, to citizens, to the media. We must say more in public about why good design matters and we must proclaim what is good design. We must insert the values of design into the public discourse around the built environment.
Right now, we are not even in the conversation. Right now no one takes us architects seriously. Right now we are too easily dismissed as dilettantes, as the play things of the well off, as navel gazers. A couple of examples:
• Less than 1 in 10 buildings built in this country is designed by an architect.
• Engineers design and stamp the design documents for every building type – an architects’ stamp is almost never required.
• We as a profession have run from risk and liability, creating the need for ‘construction management’, now eating as big a fee if not bigger than what the architect commands.
• Qualifications based selection is being replaced, even in public work by price based selection. As you might guess, the cheapest one wins that competition and delight falls by the wayside.
We are getting our lunch eaten by too many professions. Why has this happened? It has happened because too many great decisions about our built environment have happened without great public debate. We have allowed the debates to stay relatively private in hopes of securing a commission, or getting a spot in the queue for the next one. I saw this first hand as President of the LA chapter of the American Institute of Architecture last year. More often than I would have liked, we as an organization remained silent on several of the big issues facing the city of LA because speaking in favor of or against an issue might step on a toe or two. Just imagine what the LA Metro would look like if design was as much of an issue as it was when the Washington DC Metro was built. Imagine how much more delightful the massive LAUSD school construction effort I mentioned earlier would be if only the best architects were hired, not just the ones willing to deal with the bureaucracy.
We need you to join the fight. Luckily, to join, all that is required is your voice. Use it and you will make a difference. Apply the knowledge of design you have learned here at SCI-Arc to the public discourse and you will move the discussion forward. Be an architect and be a citizen. Both are required.
So what does this mean for SCI-Arc? Unfortunately, it means that SCI-Arc is not real. SCI-Arc is a mirage. As you step back through the looking glass you will understand that SCI-Arc is a fantastical dream land of design. This is a place where all that matters is design. Now your task is to bend that skill to what is happening outside of this delightful train depot. Today you receive your degree in design. Tomorrow you begin your degree in getting things built. You’ve studied design, now you need to become an expert in architectural practice.
So get involved. Work at being an architect. Intern – for pay – at the best firm you can get yourself into. Get licensed. With 8 or 9 separate tests and all of the Intern Development Program requirements, the process is long and not inexpensive but you need to do it and you need to start doing it right now. Your value in the marketplace jumps considerably once you have your license. And yes Frank Gehry is a licensed architect so don’t make any excuses. Having a license will open doors for you.
Along with getting involved, you must get vocal. Join the AIA; everyone will see you as an architect if you have the ‘Associate AIA’ and once licensed, simply ‘AIA’ after your name. Get on the Planning and Land Use committee at your local Neighborhood Council. Join a business group like the Westside Urban Forum, or the Central City Association, or the hugely influential Urban Land Institute. Be an architect who does more than just draw. Be an architect who speaks proudly and openly about the delights of good design.
I hope you savor this ceremony; enjoy this moment and feel proud of all the work and dedication you and your family have shown to get you to this point. Now, join me and jump with two feet into the messy world outside these confines. Jump into the rules and the regulations and the budgets and the spreadsheets. You have been trained to see how design can make every one of those better. Spread design around and the world will be a better place.
See you in the trenches.
[Be sure to listen to Eric Owen Moss's comments following the conclusion of my speech (minute 60).]