Jade Snelling International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), Women's History

Organizational Politics and the Evolution of the AIA Task Force on Women in the Profession

Created in 1857, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is the primary professional organization for architects in the United States, the stated purpose of which was and is “to unite in fellowship all members of the architectural profession.” Perhaps it goes without saying that at the time it was established it was presumed that all such members would be (white) men. Louise Bethune, the first woman to become a member of the Institute was admitted in 1888, more than thirty years after its founding. The Institute exercises social control over public perception of architecture, professional and hiring standards, and opportunities for its membership.

Nearly a century after Bethune’s admission to the AIA, the organization’s inclusion of women hadn’t progressed much, which was symptomatic of both the institutional culture and the architectural profession writ large. In 1973, a resolution was proposed and adopted at the National AIA Convention in San Francisco that the organization should “take action to integrate women into all aspects of the profession as full participants” and conduct an inquiry into “the status of women in the profession” to be reported on at the 1974 Convention (Edelman 1989, 118). The 1973 resolution was a product of the liberatory rights movements of the 1960s and, consequently, of several years of women becoming increasingly vocal about their second-class status as architects.

As Judith Edelman notes in her essay “Task Force On Women: The AIA Responds to a Growing Presence,” published in the edited volume Architecture: A Place for Women, most women architects in the 1960s and 1970s found professional support outside of the American Institute of Architects. Women had either developed their own informal professional networks or taken the initiative to form their own official local or regional coalitions, associations, or organizations. Ellen Perry Berkeley, editor of the above-mentioned volume and co-creator of the New York-based group Alliance for Women in Architecture (AWA), contributed an influential article to this groundswell of advocacy (Merrett 2018). Berkeley’s piece “Women in Architecture,” appearing in the 1972 issue of Architectural Forum, presented a cogent case for institutional change. Her article begins with the Institute’s refusal to acknowledge that it bears any responsibility for discrimination against women members and, by extension, practitioners:

True or false: The architectural profession, in a kind of ‘gentlemen’s agreement,’ gives its women unequal pay, unequal responsibility, unequal opportunity, unequal recognition, and unequal respect as serious professionals.

False, say the official spokesmen. ‘Some of my best friends are women architects,’ jokes James A. Scheeler, Deputy Executive Vice President of the AIA. More seriously he says, ‘I’ve heard consistently there should be more women in the profession. But I’m not aware of our schools discouraging women: I’d like to see some facts.’ He defines a ‘positive program’ as getting more women ‘into the pipeline,’ and a negative program as raising the subject of discrimination ‘without hard data.’ (Berkeley 1972, 46)

In the article, Berkeley cites what “studies” exist: the AIA’s estimate (according to a survey of its membership conducted in 1971, women comprised roughly 1.2% of its members (233 women in 1969, a number estimated to have grown to between 250 and 300 by 1971)) and refers to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which estimated that women composed around 4% of registered architects in the United States. She gives other comparative statistics (wages, school admissions) based on the best information available at the time, but notes a frustrating lack of reliable or systematic data. She does however systematically dismantle Scheeler’s claim that architecture’s “woman problem” is purely a pipeline problem. Implied, but never explicitly stated, is that his request for concrete “hard data” is an ignorant dismissal masquerading as reasonableness.

The AIA Task Force (first a sub-committee) on Women addressed this data vacuum by undertaking the most comprehensive survey of the status of women in architecture to date. To return to the group’s formation, Judith Edelman writes of her misgivings when she was asked, pursuant to the AIA’s 1973 resolution, to chair a subcommittee of the Personnel Practices Committee: “I was taken aback… that the entire subject was relegated to a minor arm of a committee dealing with many other issues. We had supposed that an independent committee or task force would be the appropriate entity” (Edelman 1989, 119). She accepted the position, however, and began working to survey women across the profession, even as her sub-committee suffered several setbacks, whether from incompetence or intentional obstruction from other AIA members remains uncertain.

The lion’s share of the documentation we hold in the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) on the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Task Force on Women and the Commission’s efforts to “integrate women into the profession and the AIA” from the early-to-mid-1970s can be found among Edelman‘s papers, while a few cross-references exist in other IAWA collections, including Natalie de Blois‘, Marie Laleyan’s, and Jean Linden Young‘s, all of whom were members of the commission (Patricia Schiffelbein and Joan Sprague, whose papers are held at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library, were also members of the commission at various points).

In 1974 Edelman requested a status change to an independent task force and Marie Laleyan became her co-chair. The outcome of their work was an Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) delivered to the AIA Board of Directors in December 1975 that included their original report on the status of women in the profession, and their specific recommendations to address the major inequities laid out in said report. The plan outlined specific goals, actions, and tools; it provided guidance on future representation of women and inclusive language for professional literature; it gave precise details on compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (as amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972) and advised the AIA to create standard guides on “lawful employment practices” to distribute to members upon request; it recommended scholarships and early education interventions to recruit young women into the profession; and it provided benchmark statistics to annually evaluate implementation of the AAP. By all accounts, it was an intentionally actionable document with built-in means for its future assessment and adjustment. As stated in the final plan:

The Affirmative Action concept has been developed over the past ten years as a tool to correct the results of past and present discrimination. Experience has shown, however, that for an affirmative action effort to be effective, it must be directed by a set of specific procedures… [It] is a results-oriented, open-ended plan of action. It requires the analysis of existing conditions, setting of goals and timetables, and development of programs and a set of implementation and record-keeping procedures. (v, AAP/AIA, Edelman, Box 1, Folder 12)

Cover page, The American Institute of Architects, “Affirmative Action Plan for the Integration of Women in the Architectural Profession,” 1975.
Affirmative Action Statement, The American Institute of Architects, “Affirmative Action Plan for the Integration of Women in the Architectural Profession,” 1975.
Request to change committee structure, June 20, 1974. Addressed to Edward Petrazio, AIA.

 

In Edelman’s candid postmortem, she writes, “In spite of the odds against us, we had produced a very thorough document with great potential for accelerating improvement in the status of women architects. And nothing much happened.” (1989, 122) She goes on to reflect that, while the AIA did nothing with the plan, the work went on to have a life beyond its institutional charge. She focuses on the report’s value as the first systematic attempt to measure and analyze the demographic makeup of the profession, the primary causes of unbalanced gender representation, and the endemic and active discriminatory practices (in hiring, promotion, salary, etc.) deployed against licensed women architects.

On the one hand, it’s an old story–institutions being conservative and resistant to change, well-intentioned (but toothless) reports being ignored. But I think Edelman was right–for those who want to carry on the work, the AAP provides a snapshot of the profession at a point in time and it clearly articulates women practitioners’ grievances (as pulled from surveys). Looked at this way, the report’s lack of effect proved its charge correct and underscored the need for institutional change. And in fact it came to embody a feminist critique of intractable organizational politics. A full copy of the report with its appendices and recommendations is available in Special Collections and University Archives or can be found online here. For supporting documentation, please see the Judith Edelman Architectural Papers.

References:

Box 1, Folder 12, Judith Edelman Architectural Papers, Ms1997-010, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=oai/VT/repositories_2_resources_2044.xml.

Berkeley, Ellen Perry. “Women in Architecture.” The Architectural Forum, vol. 137, no. 2, September 1972. https://usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1972-09.pdf. Accessed 13 Sept. 2024.

McQuaid, Matilda, and Ellen Perry Berkeley. Architecture : A Place for Women. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.

———-Edelman, Judith. “Task Force On Women: The AIA Responds to a Growing Presence.” Architecture : A Place for Women. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.

Merrett, Andrea. “Ellen Perry Berkeley.” Now What?!, Architexx, 24 May 2018. https://www.nowwhat-architexx.org/articles/2018/5/24/ellen-perry-berkeley. Accessed 13 Sept. 2024.

Jade Snelling Architecture, History, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA)

Universal Design: Approaching Accessibility and Sustainability with Intention in the Present and Future of Design

This post was written by IAWA Student Library Assistant Neera Naran. She studies landscape architecture in the College of Art, Architecture, and Design at Virginia Tech.

The Steven and Cathi House Architectural Collection is available for research in the University Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives at Virginia Tech.

On the Baja Peninsula, overlooking the Sea of Cortez, sits Casa Cabo Pulmo, House + House Architects’ one-of-a-kind, fully accessible home. Covered in rich hues of red, orange, and yellow and an abundance of floor-to-ceiling windows, the two-story house radiates warmth, reflecting the surrounding landscape. Casa Cabo Pulmo, built in 2010, is just one of many environmentally conscious and well-choreographed establishments that Cathi and Steven House have created in their careers. Alumni of the Virginia Tech architecture program, where they met in the 1970s, the Houses formed House + House Architects in 1982 and since then have garnered over 50 design awards, been featured in numerous national and international publications, lectured across North America, and published three books. When beginning the creative process for Casa Cabo Pulmo, Steven and Cathi approached the home through the lens of universal design, something that can be observed across many of their projects.

In the practice of architecture, historically, accessibility has often been an afterthought, i.e., not intentionally integrated into the design and aesthetic of a project. Universal design is making things accessible regardless of physical or mental ability and doing so without the need for adaptation or specialization. The term was coined in the 1980s by architect Ronald Mace, who created universal design as someone with first-hand experience living in a world that didn’t always consider accessibility, as he used a wheelchair for his whole life after contracting polio at the age of nine. Universal design simply refers to design usable by all people. To ensure the creation of a space suitable for all types of abilities, it’s important to take on accessibility as a key part of the design process, thinking about how it shapes user experience in the present and future of the project.

Accessibility and sustainability were considered throughout all the design moves with Casa Cabo Pulmo. The house is a happy blend of the owners, Patricia Wright and Debra Zeyen, as Patricia is a disability rights activist and Debra is an executive director for an institute in Baja, Mexico, striving to protect coastal ecosystems. Wright and Zeyen wanted to make sure the house could withstand time and provide for their needs long into the future, as they had current physical demands for themselves and friends, as well as a future where they could both possibly have disability concerns.

House + House Architects believe that accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought in design. In the words of Steven House, “A lot of it comes down to common sense. We assume people are going to get older in their home, and you might eventually have a harder time working and seeing. For every project we do, we think about these concepts and incorporate them from the beginning so they’re not tacked on” (2015). Accessibility should be fully incorporated in design strategies, addressed as an integral part of the experience it provides, not merely baseline functionality. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance is done in a tasteful manner in the style of Cathi House, showing there was thought and intention behind it, and displaying accessibility in a beautiful way.

South elevation view where the ramp entrance is shown, the entire structure incorporated into the design of the house. From the Steven and Cathi House Architectural Collection, Ms2006-017, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic and State University.

One of the main features of the house is a winding 165 ft. ramp that can be used to get from one level of the house to the other, including terraces for stopping and observing surrounding views of the landscape and water. Many of the design choices were informed by the landscape, including the intricate hand railing for the ramp that casts shadows which mimic the waves of the ocean. The ramp presents twists and turns in order for the user to spend time in the space, appreciating the beauty it has to offer, rather than just passing through. In addition to the ramp, Cathi House included hydraulic lifts on ceilings, lower light switches and handles, accessible bathrooms and showers, access to all patios, appliances and counters at a lower level, higher outlets, curved benches, and wide hallways to contribute to the universal design of the house. While some of these features may seem insignificant to an able-bodied person, these make all the difference in the everyday life of someone with accessibility concerns. Although they were made with the intention of being used primarily by those with disabilities, the owners believed these design additions to be helpful for all, regardless of ability.

Section elevation of ADA accessible ramp leading into the house. From the Steven and Cathi House Architectural Collection, Ms2006-017, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic and State University.
Rendered section elevation of the ADA accessible ramp leading into the house. From the Steven and Cathi House Architectural Collection, Ms2006-017, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Along with accessibility, sustainability was also heavily addressed in the design of the house, as the owners wanted an energy-independent home. Features like passive and active solar heating, convection and shading, and cross ventilation were added to the establishment. Additionally, water storage in the ADA accessible ramp for rainwater with an irrigation and purification system was designed. Material usage was also informed by sustainability and energy use, as Palapa roofing and shades, concrete flooring, and solar panels were included.

First floor plan with view of the open layout, including features like concrete flooring and the 165 ft. ramp. From the Steven and Cathi House Architectural Collection, Ms2006-017, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic and State University.

Not only does House + House Architects put the idea of universal design into practice, but they spread their knowledge of it, as well. Cathi and Steven believe that universal design isn’t discussed or taught properly at universities, and they make it a mission to have accessibility be a large part of their teachings to students. In their program, The Center for Architecture Sustainability + Art (CASA), the Houses host a group of Virginia Tech architecture students every summer at their school in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This study abroad program strives to teach students how to make their environment a thoughtful and sustainable place. The group travels to multiple cities in Mexico, observing the history of architecture in the past in order to create connections to architecture of the future. They prioritize informing young designers with the knowledge of accessibility and sustainability so that in the future, they are able to think of these as integral parts of the process. Ultimately, CASA provides students with a deeper understanding of what it means to be a designer living in a place that harmonizes with an interconnected and diverse environmental system.

Universal design is key to the future of architecture, as it creates spaces made for the widest range of bodies, centering user experience in the creative process. How people function in a space and how they feel in a space should go hand in hand when developing a design, as Cathi House has demonstrated in Casa Cabo Pulmo, which is a beautiful testament to what accessibility and sustainability can look like when considered essential factors of design.

References

Carey, Lydia. “Award-winning Baja home proves accessibility can be beautiful.” Mexico News Daily, 28 August 2019, https://mexiconewsdaily.com/mexico-living/home-proves-accessibility-can-be-beautiful/.

House + House Architects. “Casa Cabo Pulmo.” House and House, undated, https://houseandhouse.com/work.php?pcode=pulmo.

Sisson, Patrick. “A Remote Baja Home Built to Be Accessible to Everyone.” Curbed, VOX Media, 13 August 2015, https://archive.curbed.com/2015/8/13/9930910/casa-caba-pulmo-universal-design-house.

The Universal Design Project. “What is Universal Design? – The UD Project.” The Universal Design Project, undated, https://universaldesign.org/definition.

Jade Snelling Architecture, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA)

The Unrealized Vision of Architect Merle Easton’s “School Street Concept:” A Window Into Public Education Reform in 1970s West Philadelphia

The Merle Easton Collection is fully processed and the finding aid is available here.

Born in 1940, Merle Easton grew up in Sitka, Alaska, a port town on Baranof Island, southwest of Juneau, just to the west of British Columbia. She attended several schools in the Pacific Northwest before ultimately earning her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1966. Interested in patterns of urban development and accounting for community needs in design, she developed a plan for a Community Center in central Seattle for her thesis project.

Following graduation, Easton found steady work in the Mid-Atlantic states. She worked independently, but also with agencies focused on concerns around urban renewal, affordable housing, and community displacement. As an independent architect, Easton developed the “street school” concept that was an outgrowth of the Mantua-Powelton Mini-School (MPMS) in West Philadelphia. Her conceptual design was intended to become a template for decentralized, modular schools, using inexpensive prefabricated units, integrated into their local neighborhoods. While the mini-school itself wasn’t a product of Easton’s design, it was her direct inspiration. An urban renewal project focused on refurbishing an abandoned factory building to house a small, integrated, and community-controlled school, the Mini-school sought to implement a radically different curriculum in a “found” space. The school served roughly 120-150 students (nearly all Black) in the two years it was open, all drawn from the surrounding area, and was meant to be a bridge between the middle class Powelton neighborhood and the predominantly Black and underserved Mantua neighborhood.

Riffing on the underlying philosophy of the Mini-school, Easton collaborated with neighborhood activist and MPMS principal Forrest Adams to develop a design geared toward scaling the existing school into a “mini-school system.” This prototype would offer affordable and sustainable growth that would expand the school without disrupting community life – it would rehabilitate and reuse space and resources, minimize waste and impingement, and weave community life and experiential learning into the fabric of elementary education. Easton developed drawings, scale models, and a film to promote the concept and get critical buy-in from the Mantua and Powelton communities and various funding agencies.

The project was written about in two issues of Progressive Architecture, Design and Planning: The New Schools by James Morisseau, and in Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective, edited by Susana Torre. In Torre’s book, Easton’s vision is described as “designed to cut time and expense in school construction, to revitalize high density inner city neighborhoods and to provide a more complete and relevant education including the entire community in the process. The school utilizes ‘found’ spaces, such as streets and empty lots. Prefabricated classrooms and toilets, multimedia domed meeting rooms and retractable barrel vaults plug into a community and draw upon people, existing businesses, and institutions as educational resources” (Torre 164). Adams and Easton both advocated for the idea of a “street school” as more cost effective than the traditional alternatives, arguing it would cost $7-10 per square foot compared to $21-30 per square foot of conventional school construction (Progressive Architecture 34). And yet the idea failed to garner enough critical traction to be fully realized.

The Mantua-Powelton Mini-School foundered for a few reasons, some rooted in a lack of critical oversight, others located in the novelty of its power structure. In Seven Schools, a 1972 publication from The Young Great Society Building Foundation, the authors cite the fact that the school had too little time to fully develop multiple radical approaches to education. This, coupled with not making good on its promise of engaging the community, lack of continued funding, and disagreements among its teachers regarding both curriculum and discipline, made for chaotic implementation and practically doomed the school from the start (Goldfarb et al. 33-35). On top of these problems there was the additional stressor of the refurbished factory being poorly adapted as an educational environment.

The mission of the school and, later, the “school street concept” was and continued to be community empowerment, but as Mark R. Shedd, superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia from 1967 to 1972, admitted in a private interview: “In the early days I thought community control was the thing. Now I think shared power is more realistic. I don’t think the central administration or the board or the superintendent can abdicate. I don’t think that’s proper or realistic. The mini-school represented, in part, an abdication of our responsibilities. We didn’t insist from the outset on the proper kind of management controls… We should have insisted upon a much closer audit and monitoring function. But we didn’t” (Shedd as qtd. on 35). Here there are multiple interlocking structures at play: the educational system itself, local power structures, community participation incentives (needed to generate buy-in), zoning (and redlining), resource allocation, and so on. While the mini-school and Easton’s “school street concept” were distinct from each other, I think it’s an interesting exercise to map the lessons of the mini-school onto the larger vision of the “street school.” That’s not to say that the school street or mini-school system would necessarily have failed in its implementation, but the exercise aims to understand how fraught it can be to navigate multiple entrenched systems while trying to generate innovative design solutions.

After her work on the mini-school Easton went on to work as a draftsperson, job captain, and staff architect at several firms and on a variety of projects, including hospitals, churches, and schools. As job captain at Victor H. Wilburn & Associates, she produced a report, included in her collection, analyzing the programs of the Wilmington Housing Authority and proposing measures and policy adjustments to make their programs more effective. In the introduction to the WHA report she summarizes the problem with Wilmington planning: “policy sprawl.” Quoting an interviewee: “‘Policy sprawl’ – that ungraceful, bits-and-pieces spread of plans and projects without any overall vision to offer the public” (representative of Gauge Corporation quoted in WHA Report). A consistent thread running through Easton’s materials is her commitment to “big picture” thinking about long-term development and planning and I’m so glad her collection is now fully accessible to researchers.

References

  • Epstein, Ed. Race, Real Estate, and Education: The University of Pennsylvania’s Interventions in West Philadelphia, 1960-1980. Diss. University of Pennsylvania, 2020.
  • Goldfarb, Lawrence, Peter Brown, and Thomas P. Gallagher. Seven Schools: A Story of Community Action for Better Education. The Young Great Society Building Foundation: Philadelphia, 1972.
  • Materials relating to the Mantua-Powelton Mini-School and “school street concept,” Folders 9-13, Box 2, Merle Easton Architectural Collection, Ms2021-028, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
  • “School in the Streets” in Progressive Architecture. New York: Reinhold, October 1970. Print.
  • Torre, Susana (ed.). Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective : A Publication and Exhibition Organized by the Architectural League of New York through its Archive of Women in Architecture. Whitney Library of Design, New York, 1977.
  • Victor H. Wilburn and Associates, Progress Report to Wilmington Housing Authority, Folder 7, Box 2, Merle Easton Architectural Collection, Ms2021-028, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.

 

 

Jade Snelling Architecture, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA)

Thresholds: A Look at the Margaret Hayward Playground and Structuring Spaces for Play

Earlier posts exploring Beverly Willis’s work can be found here and here. As those posts dealt with a residential renovation and the adaptation of technology to large-scale housing developments, this post is concerned with urban design of public spaces.

Part of an axonometric drawing, Margaret S. Hayward Playground, San Francisco, Ca., c. 1981. From the Beverly Willis Architectural Collection, Ms1992-019, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

In 1978 Beverly Willis, noted architect, artist, and photographer, was commissioned to rehabilitate a public space and pre-existing playground that serves the Laguna and Golden Gate neighborhoods of San Francisco. Her charge was to design and construct a small recreation building on this site, a two-block plot that already housed tennis courts, play structures, and a small storehouse. As discussed in the posts mentioned above, Willis’s design philosophy is heavily influenced by symbolic imagery. Indeed, in her book Invisible Images, she discusses her fascination with the power of images at length: their capacity to generate ideas, to captivate us, to contextualize architecture and ultimately to connect humans to nature. But here she also took her primary audience into account, namely children, and thus considered how young people on the threshold of young adulthood might interpret spaces and images differently than their grown-up counterparts.

  • Exterior elevations, Margaret S. Hayward Playground, San Francisco, Ca., February 20, 1981.
  • Schematic plan, Margaret S. Hayward Playground, San Francisco, Ca., October 10, 1979.

When conceptualizing a small building for the park, she wanted to evoke and foster the idea of play, and to frame the building as an invitation to play. She designed what she characterized as a “toy” building, which served the dual purpose of sparking children’s imaginations and enabling other functions, i.e., serving as an administrator office, restroom, and a service kitchen for park events. It serves a host of functional needs while it also works with the idiosyncrasies of the site.

As Willis wanted the building to feel fully integrated with the rest of the block, the building’s segmented design allowed the small structure to sprawl and fan out, creating a pavilion that descended via concrete steps to the play pit. The way it’s structured gives it the slight feeling of a dais. She designed an asymmetrical wall at an angle from the building with a child-sized arch such that there would be some fluidity between the practical and playful elements of the park. No doubt, the building exploits an unusual, exploded structure (akin to something you’d see in an axonometric drawing) to maximize its magical, whimsical appeal.

I’ll leave you with Bev’s own words:

“I designed the building to be lower in height than the tallest play equipment—like a toy building. The structure fans out of its tight corner site, and diagonal walls shift through the structure, like the joints of the armadillo shell. The façade stops at a wide walkway, bordered by three tiered steps. Together, these elements create an illusion of a stage platform. On the right wing ‘stage’ wall, which extends past the building, I placed an arched opening that leads nowhere but beckons the young to pass through and explore. The painted arch opening and circular moon above are as magical as Alice’s looking glass, leading from everywhere to everywhere” (Willis 87).

References

  • Willis, Beverly. Invisible Images: The Silent Language of Architecture. National Building Museum, 1997.
  • “Margaret Hayward Park Playground Building.” Beverly Willis Archive, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, https://beverlywillis.com/architecture-project/0716/.
Jade Snelling Architecture, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), Women's History

Nature and Geometry: River Run and Beverly Willis’s Classicism With a Twist

As part of an ongoing effort to digitize records representing Beverly Willis’s significant works and projects, I’ve been highlighting some of her work in posts here. In November 2019 I wrote a post about her firm’s work in developing a program called “CARLA” or Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis and its use in a land development project (Pacific Point Condominiums). This week I’ll be looking at a smaller scale, but no less stunning, project: the River Run Residence. The house itself is beautiful, but I wanted to examine how it embodies Willis’s approach to design. When looking at a final product (a building facade, polished interiors) it can be easy to forget just how many choices went into creating something cohesive. Yet looking at design records can tease out some of the labor and give perspective on the process of designing and building that’s often obscured or mystified in the way we talk about and look at architecture. While this post won’t go deeply into the design process, it will touch on a few of the generative ideas and organizing principles behind the final building.

Section, River Run Residence, 1983. From the Beverly Willis Architectural Collection, Ms1992-019, Special Collections, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The axis of Beverly Willis’s design philosophy hews to that line between formal and informal: the formal geometries of classicism and the informal rusticity of regionalism. Willis believes that at its core, design is about the investigation of the symbolic content of forms/shapes, and the manipulation of images (for more on this, see Invisible Images). When thinking about design, it can be a long and iterative process of drafting, layering, modeling – leaving aside sourcing materials and overseeing construction – this amounts to creating and blending images to form novel yet coherent aesthetics.

The Willis-designed Palladian villa cum rustic ranch in Napa Valley, called River Run, is emblematic of this mode of design thinking. The balance of the colonnaded portico, dramatic windows, grand approach mixed with the redwood shingle siding – classicism inflected by the vernacular – are all the more impressive given River Run’s relaxed atmosphere as a retreat. This is an interesting example of how works are often colored by different influences that are channeled through a designer. “While she abided by general principles of symmetry and proportion, the local shingle style — with its spreading roof, plentiful windows, and use of natural colors and regional materials — was also a powerful influence” (58-59). Willis seems to view it as a process of simplification – synthesis and streamlining. “Although the house is quite large, it displays a consistent economy of lines and means. It draws from the vocabulary of classicism, but there’s nothing complicated about it” (Willis qtd in Nelson 60). The nature and geometry mentioned in the title – and, indeed, Willis’s philosophy in general – refer to some of the central tenets of classicism and classical philosophy – that there are natural ideals that humans gravitate toward, that shapes and forms reveal a hidden geometry.

Further reading

  • Nelson, Christina. “Modern Retreats.” Home. 1986: 58-61.
  • Nelson, Christina. “Powder Room Poise.” Home. August 1986: 70-74.
  • Willis, Beverly. Invisible Images: The Silent Language of Architecture. National Building Museum, 1997.
Jade Snelling Architecture, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), Women's History

Introducing CARLA: Pioneering Technology in Urban Planning

The Beverly Willis Architectural Collection, open for research at Special Collections and University Archives, holds many treasures: sumptuous drawings, correspondence, and photographic materials documenting the work of one of America’s great twentieth century designers. One such project we’ll be highlighting here shows Willis and Associates, Inc.’s, (WAI’s) work on an early land analysis program called CARLA. CARLA, or Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis, was a program developed by the firm in the 1970s that was on the vanguard of employing computing applications in site development.

The programs aim was to reduce construction costs by instrumentalizing and automating much of the initial planning process and environmental impact research. To this end, the firm enlisted the skills of a young urban design grad student, Jochen Eigen, to study and model the architectural planning process. His work aggregated and analyzed data on the proposed project’s user needs and the site’s zoning and topography (via a client-submitted map), which was then correlated with an internally developed database that contained information on thousands of residential sites and floor layouts – planners would iterate through the process repeatedly to determine ideal land allocations for building.

CARLA001

At the time of CARLA’s advent, land analysis was a fairly lengthy ordeal. It would take companies 4-6 months using traditional methods before they would be able to properly estimate financial cost and environmental impact. Implementing and using this new tool reduced that timeline to about three weeks. The process would result in a site perspective, analysis of soil and natural drainage patterns, areas of a plot suitable for development and areas in need of cut and fill. The program allowed easy comparison of design solutions and their respective costs.

While CARLA was specifically geared toward site analysis, it is still ancestrally linked to modern computer aided design programs. Its primary function was to optimize land use by determining the best planning unit, its placement on a parcel, the cost of doing cut and fills, etc., and these are all necessary design considerations that are layered into modern CAD/BIM software (the BIM stands for Building Information Modeling). The program turned a time-consuming, bespoke research process into something comparatively data-driven and efficient, enabling Willis’s firm to maintain its competitive edge during the recession of the 1970s. At the time of its implementation, its aim was to get more contracts for lucrative housing developments, while it also addressed another fundamental need, namely, environmental considerations in urban design.

The first such development WAI used the software for were condominiums commissioned by the Alpha Land Company, to be located on a sloping 9-acre beachfront property. In her book Invisible Images, Willis writes about the beginning of her work on the Pacific Point Condominiums, and the inadequacy of available tools for assessing cost and estimating damage to existing ecosystems. Early iterations of mapping and topographical analysis programs were created by the government during World War II and later adapted for use by oil companies for industrial use; by 1971, the Kansas Geological Survey department at the University of Kansas had developed a mapping and contour program called SURFACE II. This program would form the backbone of Eigen’s/WAI’s land analysis software. Willis recalls,

With these tools I carefully planned stepped terraces on the bluff side of the site downward toward the ocean and designed a bridgelike entry to the three-story building’s mid-section. My design used diagonally placed interior walls that slice through the apartment facades, elongating one side like a fan. These subtle diagonal wall planes direct the eye to a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean.

PacPt_reduced

PacPt001
Top: presentation drawing for Pacific Point Condominiums; bottom: photograph of development, found in Invisible Images

The history of CARLA’s development is further documented here. Some of the firm’s internal documentation of the software’s development is available in the Beverly Willis Architectural Collection and will soon be digitized and made available online as part of the library’s new digital platform.

vtspecblogger Architecture, Architecture, History, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), Uncategorized, Women's History

Trajectories of an Architects Design Sensibilities: From Student to Practitioner

Model of architectural design project.
AustellungsbauVariabelTransportabel, Architectural model, 1962

The beginning of the fall semester and the nearly overnight return to a bustling and lively campus provides a good opportunity to reflect on the essential thing that we do, which is to educate. Student works are common discoveries in the collections that form the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) and can tell us either about an architects own practice or their methods of classroom instruction. This post will focus on the former, with an eye to the role that archival collections can play in examining design sensibilities within the context of a developing architectural practice.

Drawing showing elevation and site plan sketches.
Concept drawing, Bahamas Nursing School, c. 1985.

One of the most profound ways to understand the progression of the aesthetic sensibilities of a creative professional is to examine their works (including inspirational materials, writing, and sketches) across their career. Looking at materials that span yearsor even decadesoffers a glimpse into how their style evolved, was refined, stayed constant, or in some cases shifted radically. With architects it is possible to trace the development not only of their design considerations, but also the changes in drawing techniques, enhanced observational skills, and a deeper understanding of spaces. It is often possible to see how they refine and expand their understanding of the outer world, visual culture, and the impact of spaces on the people who inhabit them.

Photograph of architectural model.
AustellungsbauVariabelTransportabel, Architectural model, 1962

The Exhibition HallVariableTransportable project was completed by Dorothee Stelzer King while she was an architecture student at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Berlin, Germany. Completed the same year that she received her degree, the project was based on a first-year design exercise involving the enlargement of a simple shape to create a complex design without adding extra material to the final structure.

Document outlining requirements and development of the project.
Description and requirements of the award-winning portable exhibition hall project.

 

Drawing showing interlocking shapes.
Concept drawing showing how a basic triangle is repeated and extended to create interlocking stars and circular forms that in turn interlock to create flexible, modular shapes.

 

Elevations, site plans, and details.
Elevations, site plans, and detail drawings for AustellungsbauVariabelTransportabel.

Ms2013-023, Dorothee Stelzer King, Folder 3Ms2013-023, Dorothee Stelzer King, Folder 3

The Dorothee Stelzer King collection also contains works that the architect completed at various points during her professional career, allowing researchers to study the progression of her designs over time. The series of concept drawings and plans for the Bahamas Nursing School in Nassau, Bahamas, shows Kings attention to understanding how educational spaces and their inhabitants interact. While the drawings show a move away from the more experimental design work seen in Exhibition HallVariableTransportable, they showcase a greater understanding of the practical nature of educational facilities and the importance of proper acoustics, seating, structural elements, and paths of movement through interior spaces.

Concept sketch for the Bahamas Nursing School, c. 1985

 

Site plan drawing.
Location plan, Bahamas Nursing School, April 16, 1985.

 

Construction photos.
Construction photographs showing exterior and interior spaces, including structural elements, of the Bahamas Nursing School project.

Ms2013_023_B001_F020toF024_002_BahamasNursing_Scrap_120Ms2013_023_B001_F020toF024_002_BahamasNursing_Scrap_118

Many other student and professional design projects and records can be accessed in the Special Collections Reading Room at Virginia Tech. The finding aid for the Dorothee Stelzer King Architectural Collection can be viewed online at Virginia Heritage. The collection is currently being digitized with funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and will be available in full through the Virginia Tech digital library.

Jade Snelling International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA)

Barn Raising: Documenting an Architectural Transformation

Architectural documentation evolves throughout a project’s life-cycle: ideas are conceptualized and committed to paper for the first time in the form of rough sketches, then iterated through during the collaborative design development phase, then, after meticulous research and calculation, transformed into construction or working documents and specifications. Designs are refined, change orders made, and construction and as-built photographs shot. What’s left in the end is a mass of records that instill in the viewer a sense of the design process, ideally.

To illustrate this cycle, I’ve put together a gallery of images from one of Eleanore Pettersen‘s projects, in which she transformed a dilapidated barn into a residential and studio space for her own use (the project did not, in fact, involve any actual barn raising, as my title may have confusingly suggested!). Looking through these pictures, her achievement really feels remarkable – I can’t help but admire the execution of her vision and wonder at this dramatic metamorphosis. Please, peruse at your leisure!

Ms2003_018_F013_001_PettersenBarn_Ms_002

Ms2003_018_F013_001_PettersenBarn_Ms_001
Rough sketches on legal pad paper, with particular attention to spatial details and measurements

Barn_before2

Barn_before
Photographs showing the space before undergoing renovations

Ms2003_018_F013_005_PettersenBarn_Ms_002
Sketches refined throughout the design development phase of the project

Ms2003_018_F013_013_PettersenBarn_Ms_001

Ms2003_018_F013_008_PettersenBarn_Ms_001
Precisely defined and unambiguous detail rendered beautifully

Ms2003_018_F014_008_PettersenBarn_Dr_001
Reproductions made for site work

Barn_PubMaterials
Spotlight on the project in The American Home

 

 

PettersenHome_photo

PettersenHome_photo2
Photograph of Pettersen in her converted home

Jade Snelling Architecture, History, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), Just for Fun

The Ineffable Beauty of a Loosely Drawn Shrub: A Gallery of Olive Chadeaynes Architectural Drawings

Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 21
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 21
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 21

Among the many things to admire about Olive Chadeayne are her devotion to detail, her naturalistic sensibility, and her ability to effortlessly merge the two. Undoubtedly, the artful blend of looseness and rigidity in her renderings makes them delightfully appealing. There can be something preternatural about architectural drawings – human-made constructions floating around in space can feel a touch unearthly, even austere and uninhabitable. This is perhaps why the loosely freehanded plants, shrubs, and trees in Chadeaynes work can appear so beautiful, even though, examined on an isolated basis, they might appear insubstantial. Their effortless inexactitude is a perfect foil to the precision of an elaborately drawn house – a softening of interrelating straightedges.

Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17

Its wonderful to look at a drawing and be greeted by an ameboid palm, a delicate swirl of eucalyptus or pine, the diaphanous outline of an elm, or the weightless curlicue of a shrub. They lend textural complexity and balance to an image, along with other highly stylized details.

Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 20

Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 16
Residence for Lineaweaver, September 1940

Of course, inexactitudes and approximations abound in architectural drawings. Architects and designers see these as collaborative gestures toward a client, for whom they want to grant enough space to impose their own creative vision. The looseness can be an invitation to play and imagine – a blurring of boundaries between architect and client, between dwellings and natures endless bounty. Enjoy!

Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 20
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 18
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17
Ms1990-057, Olive Chadeayne, Folder 17

Jade Snelling Architecture, History, Diversity, International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), Women's History

History Is Not a Meritocracy: A Deep Dive Into Confronting Gaps on Wikipedia

In honor of next week’s Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

History is not a simple meritocracy.[1] So goes the opening salvo of Despina Stratigakos Unforgetting Women Architects, an essay on writing women practitioners back into the historical record. Weve touched on this topic in previous blog posts about the history of women in architecture and the importance of making their work visible, especially online. Yet in advance of the Women in Architecture and the Arts Wikipedia edit-a-thon next Wednesday March 28th, it seemed an opportune time to take another look at the troubling lack of female representation on Wikipedia and within the architectural profession.

When we talk about representation of women on Wikipedia, we actually talk about two distinct, yet intimately connected, issues. One issue is a gender asymmetry in the sites content, the other is an asymmetry in the sites contributors.[2][3][4] Myriad and complex factors contribute to both. Wikipedias structure and ideology, the fact that many of its veteran editors are white and male, the perceived lack of importance and cultural relevance of issues significant to women implicit in Wikipedias criteria for notability,[5] sometimes ruthlessly enforced by the sites self-appointed gatekeepers; these and other factors[6] cause significant lacunae and stark attrition among female editors (who account for 13% of contributors)[7][8] in an encyclopedia that purports to be the sum of all human knowledge.

In fact, some quick research demonstrates the widened scope of notability criteria where men and mens interests are concerned. As a much-circulated New York Times article from 2011 points out[9], and indeed accounts from (sometimes expert) women contributors writing about women[10], there can be a lot of pushback on articles addressing womens interests: nitpicking about sourcing and whether an articles subject is notable enough to warrant inclusion on the site; indeed, articles on women are often flagged as not even adhering to Wikipedias neutrality guidelines. Yet there are lengthy articles and sub-articles about video games, video game characters, male-dominated television shows, and, of course, biographical articles on men in many fields that are often published without challenge.[11] To this point, a research article addressing gender bias in Wikipedias content has found that women on Wikipedia are, on the whole, more notable than their male counterparts, indicating that one must reach a higher threshold of accomplishment as a woman in order to be deemed important enough to merit an article – a threshold that the article characterizes as the glass ceiling effect.[12] Also of note, the article presents evidence that certain topics are overstated in womens biographies and tend to receive more attention than their work, i.e., their personal relationships and family status.[13]

Wikipedia culture is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a microcosm of culture writ large and its participatory homogeneity mirrors that of other kinds of open online forums that depend on user-generated content. The way the site reproduces bias, however, may be exacerbated by its claim to neutrality that is meant to bolster its reliability and credibility. This principle, when coupled with a lack of diversity in its user base, is problematic in that neutrality then comes to be synonymous with a white male point of view. This likely explains much of the resistance and flags that women encounter when they attempt to publish pages about other women.[14] They claim that women should write their gender out of their entries;[15] this may very well be because male editors have become accustomed to perceiving their own form of gendered analysis as the default – it is not, however, neutral.

Many scholars and practitioners (Susana Torre, Denise Scott Brown, Ellen Perry Berkeley, Dolores Hayden, Despina Stratigakos, Lori Brown, and Gabrielle Esperdy, to name but a few) have worked to challenge and dismantle pernicious myths about the architectural profession.[16] Institutions like the International Archive of Women in Architecture and the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation have made the collection of women architects papers a top priority and have helped to recover a cultural past and properly historicize the conditions of womens professional exclusion.[17] Additionally, in recent years scholars, information specialists, and architects have worked to ensure greater representation in online environments – enhancing discoverability of otherwise underappreciated or forgotten historical figures.[18][19][20] Unfortunately there isnt space here to fully unpack all of these womens various contributions to the field and its literature. Please join us next Wednesday in the Multipurpose Room at Newman Library to engage with their analysis more fully and to rewrite digital history! RSVP for the Women in Architecture Edit-a-thon here.

References

1. Despina Stratigakos, Unforgetting Women Architects: From the Pritzker to Wikipedia, Places Journal, April 2016. Accessed 21 Mar 2018. https://doi.org/10.22269/130603

2. Cohen, Noam. Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedias Contributor List. The New York Times, 30 January 2011. Accessed 21 March 2018.

3. Gardner, Sue. Nine Reasons Women Dont Edit Wikipedia (In Their Own Words), Sue Gardners Blog, 19 February 2011. Accessed 21 Mar 2018.

4. Wagner, Claudia, et al. “Women through the Glass Ceiling: Gender Asymmetries in Wikipedia.” EPJ Data Science, vol. 5, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1-24.

5. Davidge, Tania. “How to be ‘notable.'”Parlour: Women, Equity, Architecture website, 24 April 2015. Accessed 22 March 2018.

6. Gardner, 2011.

7. Cohen, 2011.

8. Bear, Julia B., and Benjamin Collier. “Where are the Women in Wikipedia? Understanding the Different Psychological Experiences of Men and Women in Wikipedia.” Sex Roles, vol. 74, no. 5, 2016, pp. 254-265.

9. Cohen, 2011.

10. Vigor, Emily. Down the Rabbit Hole: (Miss)adventures in Wikipedia. Environmental Design blog, UC Berkeley, 3 April 2015. Accessed 21 March 2018.

11. Ibid.

12. Wagner et al., 2016.

13. Ibid.

14. Vigor, 2015.

15. Gardner, 2011.

16. Torre, Susana, 1944, and Architectural League of New York. Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective : A Publication and Exhibition Organized by the Architectural League of New York through its Archive of Women in Architecture. Whitney Library of Design, New York, 1977. Scott Brown, Denise. Having words. Vol. 4;4.;. London: Architectural Association, 2009. Berkeley, Ellen P., and Matilda McQuaid. Architecture: A Place for Women. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington [D.C.], 1989. Hayden, Dolores. “What would a Non-Sexist City be Like? Speculations on Housing, Urban Design, and Human Work.” Signs, vol. 5, no. 3, 1980, pp. S170-S187. Stratigakos, Despina. Where are the Women Architects?. Princeton University Press, in association with Places Journal, Princeton, 2016. Brown, Lori A. Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture. Ashgate, Burlington, VT; Farnham, Surrey, 2011. Esperdy, Gabrielle. The Incredible True Adventures of the Architectress in America, Places Journal, September 2012. Accessed 22 Mar 2018. https://doi.org/10.22269/120910

17. Torre, 1977.

18. Moritz, Cyndi. Project Aims to Raise Profile of Women Architects on Wikipedia. Syracuse University News, 1 June 2015. Accessed 21 March 2018.

19. “The Year Five Campaign.” Art + Feminism. Accessed 22 March 2018.

20. “Welcome to Parlour.” Archiparlour. Accessed 22 March 2018.