Record@AIA06

A final note: Larry's yard

June 10, 2006
Larry Scarpa held a smallish gathering in his yard at the conclusion of the AIA festivities. We had published his Umbrella House, a photo of which he used as an invitation. I wanted to see what we had published, and to see Larry, an old architecture friend. When I drove up the street in small-scale Venice, I passed Jonathan Segal getting out of his car. There weren’t that many people standing in the yard, but I immediately recognized the other three editors from Record who were there, and there, on the low wall, sat Larry.

After snagging a quick drink, I looked up to the second floor and saw another architect waving down at me. He looked so familiar, but not an LA name I could recall. When he came down I found that it was John Howie from Florida, the author of a seminal book on the Sarasota school, and one of my favorite personalities. He was chatting with Marvin Rand, an architectural photographer par excellence, the individual who had shot Larry’s house for us, and who continues to perform photographic magic with a lens. He wasn’t the only photographer present: my colleague from New Orleans, Neil Alexander, with whom I had made a documentary on the late architect Hays Town, was lumbering down the steps. He made a few surreptitious shots of the gathered group.

Just over there was Frances Anderton, the host of DNA, an LA-based public radio show that included me in an interview on hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. Frances, an excellent conversationalist, was talking to Peter Cook, Paul Finch, and Bill Menking, a trio we had just encountered at the Audi party for the Architect’s Newspaper.

The evening was sublime: all sunset and wafting Pacific breeze and blooming trees. Good friends, old and young, a house that shone like artwork, a narrow street near the ocean. I want to live in Los Angeles.

Robert Ivy, FAIA

Bill McDonough wraps it up

June 10, 2006
At 2:15 pm, I was warned by Phil Simon that Bill McDonough was having “Powerpoint problems.” I had arrived in time for an interview with the leading light of architectural sustainability, but found him deeply enmeshed in a computer horror, an hour from presentation time and having to literally reconstruct his talk, which had vanished. After much agida, he managed to pull it together, literally carrying the laptop into the auditorium while still running, afraid that the machine might freeze, leaving us all without a visual image.

I needn’t have worried. After introducing him, I settled back to watch him, in a considered, yet urgent call, lead us through the planetary predicament, some of which we are complicit with. His view of architecture’s role in the global order struck a nerve with me and with the audience, particularly his use of a word I employ myself—one many architects fail to recognize—humility. In his cosmology, that term reflects an appropriate response to our place in the larger natural world, suggesting caution on our part that we do no harm but enrich the places we create. Too few of us share his vision, but more are catching on every day.

After the lights went up, I let out an inward sigh of relief, signifying the wrap-up of another year’s AIA convention. Call it a success by any measure.

Robert Ivy, FAIA

Design? At an architecture convention? Whatever!

June 9, 2006

Architect Frank Harmon put on a fantastic session this morning called Architects Discuss America's New Regionalism that was no doubt one of the most important events of the convention. Why's that? Because, as far as I can see, it's the only session where a bunch of architects―Rick Joy, Larry Scarpa, and Tom Kundig―actually talked to other architects about DESIGN.

I'd estimate that about 400 architects attended, and they stayed in their seats for 90 minutes. Nice, huh? Frank (the pic is of his house, courtesy his firm's website) put on a similar session when the convention was in Chicago two years ago and, same thing: packed room, a few hundred people.

Frank might not want me to say anything (because he's too nice a guy to ever bring up this kind of thing; but since I played a small part in developing the session proposal, and getting McGraw-Hill Construction and Architectural Record to sponsor it I feel entitled), but initially the proposal for this session was REJECTED by the committee responsible for the convention's programs. He pulled some strings and someone out there did recognize the value of this kind of dialogue.

The theme for this year's convention was ARCHITECTURE ON THE EDGE; maybe a discussion on regionalism wasn't edgy enough, but C'MON! We can't forget that at these events we need inspiration and must discuss design. It can't all be about risk management, etc. Anyway, kudos to this panel for a great session, and to Frank for sticking to his guns.

Charles Linn, FAIA

TGIF: green, coffee, awards

June 9, 2006
Friday morning began early with the Architectural Record Ad Awards breakfast. A star-studded jury of architects presented their compliments and criticism of the ads in the magazine, commenting on what they liked about the winners and what they hoped advertisers might consider in the design of their ads. Then we were off to a get-together at the Tile of Spain booth, where they presented a book on the moulding, assembling, and design of ceramics in architecture. I then trekked across to the West Hall and arrived at the green pavilion for a visit to the U.S. Green Building Council booth. Not unexpected, USGBC has run out of copies of the just-published and very well-received GreenSource (the McGraw-Hill booth faced the same fate). Full disclosure: I'm also managing editor of GreenSource.

After taking a break and having a chai latte at Starbucks (is this trivial enough for you?), Bill Hague and I talked with Phil Bernstein of Autodesk for about 45 minutes. Having never met Phil before, I had the privilege of being greatly impressed with his knowledge, his new ideas, and unique perspective on the practice of architecture and the role of technology.

This evening will prove to be a feast of residential design, with the residential roundtable discussion at the Biltmore that will include such wonderful architects as Will Bruder, Frank Harmon, Jonathan Segal, Larry Scarpa, Ed Hord, David Baker and others, then the Katrina residential competition gathering to follow.

Jane Kolleeny, Senior Editor

A "Big Ass" Products Round-up

June 9, 2006
Weyerhaeuser used their bright green booth at the show to launch the company's iLevel brand, a new organizational structure intended to simplify the process of ordering materials from the forest products manufacturer. Delta introduced the Urban collection of European-styled faucets for the booming upscale condo market.

The award for best manufacturer name at the show goes to a Lexington, Kentucky company called "Big Ass Fans," whose booth displayed certainly the biggest fan I've ever seen circulating above the heads of attendees. HessAmerica had a simple display of their latest area lighting fixtures in the West Hall, including the Night Elements line of pole lights that place illumination on several levels of the fixture.

The USGBC unveiled a new branding image, a subtle but fresher version of their logo and marketing materials. Novum Structures (formerly Mero) has repositioned the company's image and product line as well, and displayed both in a small glass structure on the floor of the West Hall.

Rita Catinella Orrell, Products Editor

Only architecture, or possibly Brad Pitt, can save us now

June 9, 2006
Talking more with Phil Bernstein, of Autodesk, I learned he was a technical advisor for the six-episode PBS series on sustainable design, called "design:e2," which Autodesk sponsors (but didn't create). The series begins airing this month in many markets.

I didn't ask Phil if he met series narrator and the most publicized new dad in the universe, Brad Pitt. I didn't care. I sat through screenings of two episodes of the series, and they're worth seeing, absolutely. Visually, the effect the series producers chose was an artsy, almost sepia-toned, vaguely colored look instead of the usual straight-forward vivid colors. It goes with the topic, I think.

The highlight of the last program in the series was architect Ken Yeang talking about the stunning Singapore Library, which is gorgeous and user-friendly while incorporating many energy-saving elements with smart-building elements, resulting in features such as escalators that stop when nobody's on them and start up again when someone approaches.

Okay, Phil walked back into the room and I crumpled and asked him if he'd met Brad Pitt. No, he said, but he's coming to one of the kickoff events that Autodesk is doing in various cities to introduce the series. Darn, they've already done New York City, so I'll have to miss that.

Judy Schriener
Managing Online Editor, McGraw-Hill Construction/
Editor-in-Chief, Construction.com

Phil Bernstein, creator of terrorists

June 9, 2006
Talking with Phil Bernstein, Autodesk's BIM guru, among other things, is always such fun. He's smart, opinionated, accomplished, visionary and, best of all, has a sense of his place in the world that's a combination of cynicism, humanitarianism and baby-boomer-era rebellion.

I decided to forego our usual "professional" style "interview" today and just get to know him a little better in kind of a free-form conversation. What a treat! Some things I learned about him: He's the oldest of six kids. He's been married for 23 years to a woman he describes as "a saint." His screensaver on his baby-sized computer (oh, how envious I am after lugging around my Dell D410) is a happy picture at Glacier National Park of her—smiling BIG—with their four girls, ages 13-18. (And they only have one bathroom, can you imagine?) They just adopted the two youngest—sisters—from Russia four years ago.

More: He loves watching reality TV shows like "Project Runway" and "Top Chef." "It's like being back in school," he says, "with all the politics and the drama." He doesn't think a reality show on architecture would work because "you can't build a building in a week."

And last: I asked him, as a longtime adjunct professor of architecture at Yale, if he thought students were more equipped to go from school to practice. He said, "I think they're emotionally more prepared and technically less prepared," meaning they understand that to be an architect is less about being a "starchitect" and more about social responsibility, sustainability, etc. He teaches in what he calls "a very hierarchical way," moving from the profession to the practice to the project. And he teaches the rules. But... "I've become increasingly convinced that rules don't work anymore," he says. So he teaches his students to question everything: "why the fee is fixed, why the contractor doesn't get to the table until it's time to bid, why technology is deployed not in the service of outcomes but in the service of risk." He grins that "who-me-I'm-innocent" grin and says, "So I'm creating a generation of terrorists." And that's a very good thing.

Judy Schriener
Managing Online Editor, McGraw-Hill Construction
Editor-in-Chief, Construction.com

Roman, oil excesses at the Getty Villa

June 8, 2006
Later in the day, we headed to the Getty Villa in Malibu, where we met Bradley Johnson from Machado and Silvetti’s office, the Mexican salad from lunch still clinging to the dental work. He and Zoltan Pali, whose firm SPF:a was the executive architect, met us at the Visitors' Center, a powerfully compressed space. Although I had spent considerable amount of time around the opening of the Getty Center, this was a first visit to the Villa, an idyllic property up a canyon just off the Pacific Coast Highway.

What a scrumptious sight. All that vegetation, all that money so artfully deployed to create an Eden in concrete and stone. The architects seemed to have worked at two scales—a sort of muscular heroic, in which beefy walls step along canyon walls, offering heft and a clearly articulated step up the canyon walls, then cascading down the hillsides in a series of cascades. At the same time, the hybrid project includes a wealth of detailing that would make an emperor blush: Italian marble that glows from within, bronze fittings and entire walls of glazing, hand-crafted sconces and fittings, and more varieties of concrete than you could have imagined existed. Black marble flows like water on flat surfaces; Turkish onyx caps a wall. All that oil money has been frozen in time, transformed into a roman dreamscape that funnels inside to the displays, climatically and seismically stabilized.

The juxtaposition of materials, which are extreme in number and kind, provoke a cacophony of responses on first glance, and the aesthetic choices sometimes confront one another like atonal music, crying out that more may not mean more. Where excess counts, sometimes, more is less. The ultra-refinement of detailing and materials contrasts throughout with the heroic architectural interventions, carving a rambling processional throughout the site, creating a kind of Pacific paradise of lush vegetation, flowering trees and plants, and splashing pools. Spatially more complex than a photograph, plying the line between sun, shade, and shadow, this intensely designed complex brings out the Croesus envy in the most ardent democrat: money can't buy you love, but oh, what only money can buy.

Robert Ivy, FAIA

Lorcan O'Herlihy ponders bigness

June 8, 2006
We hopped through the interminable traffic, out the freeway to the cover child of the May issue of Record (and maybe my favorite cover ever), Lorcan O'Herlihy’s office. It could have been the office of any number of architects in the city, a small building with a garage door at the rear, open to the elements. Lorcan met us as we walked in, pointed out his artwork (he’s a painter, who lived in New York at one point), and then quickly began to point out his work. I particularly wanted to see him in person: he had done a credible job on an incredible site adjacent to the Schindler house, and we had begun to feature his creative houses regularly. He didn’t disappoint.

One by one he showed how his projects were increasing in scale and complexity, inching their way up from single-family to multifamily confabulations, like Rubik’s Cubes with open spaces for outdoor living. Lorcan talked enthusiastically about his work, which seemed to be headed for construction, then mentioned he wanted more for the pipeline. He’s at that tenuous moment, stretching from a small shop to a larger group (just over 30 people now). My heart ached at the memories of those days, the hard days, when you decide whether to stay small or grow. After all, somebody has to pay the bills, and you realize one day that, guess what, it’s you!

Robert Ivy, FAIA

Nobody walks in LA... except at the convention center

June 8, 2006
The AIA show is fairly easy to cover product-wise. It's not overwhelmingly large, the products are obviously focused for our audience, and the attendees come and go on the show floor, keeping the traffic flowing smoothly. This morning I walked the floor of the South Hall, the bigger of the two halls that make up the show at the Los Angeles Convention Center. After checking out the press room and touching base with other Record folks, I was one of the first people on the floor at 9:30.

On the show floor I stopped by the Alcoa booth, where they were introducing Reynobond with Kevlar, a new panel system that can stop hurricane-propelled debris from penetrating the building envelope, all without a backer board. Cambridge Architectural Mesh had some introductions as well, including a new railing system and a motorized screen system that can be used to divide large areas into smaller spaces. Ivalo Lighting has a modest, well-designed booth for their beautiful fixtures. As they are the only lighting manufacturer to use automotive paint to coat their fixtures, it's not completely surprising that they are developing a new collaboration with Audi.

And of course, the McGraw-Hill Construction booth is crowded as always—even in fashion-conscious L.A., people just love those neon-orange bags!

Rita Catinella Orrell, Products Editor

Thom Mayne stirs it up

June 8, 2006
Best quote of the day: “We have got to get rid of this president!” That was architect Thom Mayne, FAIA, referring to George Bush, not AIA president Kate Schwennsen, during the opening session’s panel discussion on Innovation. Second best: “He sounds like he is getting ready to run for office,” by Rafael Moneo, Hon. FAIA, referring to Thom Mayne.

Charles Linn, FAIA, Deputy editor

Gold Medal Limos

June 8, 2006
Sometimes you just get lucky. I’m always late for the first day of the AIA Convention, and this morning was no exception; you know it’s just hard to trade a morning lounging around one’s fabulous room at the Biltmore for the rigors of the Los Angeles Convention Center. But, as I headed onto the street a bright golden flash caught my eye, and lo and behold, out of the shadows stepped my old pal Antoine Predock. And the dude’s got the old bling bling on—you know what I mean—it’s the Gold Medal, man. Okay, okay. It’s not like the dude wears it around ALL the time; he’s heading over to the convention hall, where he was to be introduced rock-star style to several thousand of his admirers. We shoot the breeze for a couple minutes, and when his limo pulls up he says, “hey forget about the bus, hop in, I’ll give you a lift.”

What a guy. Now, look, getting a ride over to the convention center would be lucky enough to make my day, but that’s NOT WHAT I MEANT. In my humble opinion Antoine has got to be about the nicest quote-unquote “star” architect who ever lived (we go back awhile), and he’s got talent to burn. If you haven’t checked out some of his recent work, especially the unbuilt stuff, stop wasting time and click on his site. I mean, the guy’s a legend, hey, he’s in Wikipedia, and he’s going over to the convention in a baseball cap (of course, it’s an Antoine Predock baseball cap), but honestly, what other Gold Medal winner would do that?

Charles Linn, FAIA, Deputy editor

Just another LA evening...

June 7, 2006
After the party at Michael Lehrer's, we headed back to the funky old Biltmore Hotel to pick up friends and head out again. This time we wandered around Santa Monica and its airport for half an hour when we ran into, you guessed it, John Friedman and Alice Kimm, looking for the same party. We followed their lead over to the launch party for the California edition of the Architect’s Newspaper, held in the Audi design center.

It was a lush California night, what with the artfully trained spotlights, the music leaking out, and the crowds around the munchies and the bar, straining over the din to hear Peter Cook, (yes, Peter Cook, of Archigram fame), talking above the din.

The eclectic crowd included the architectural cognoscenti, including a couple I overheard saying, “Well, I’m scared not to come. What if they wrote something about us!” They needn’t have worried. It was a celebratory affair, with Thom Mayne speaking from Pritzkerdom, Architectural Review editor Paul Finch offering avuncular offstage remarks, and our little coterie of Record groupies, eating and drinking and hugging everything in sight.

What an evening—our first on the scene in LA for a while. Come back Thursday for more, with meaning.

Robert Ivy, FAIA

Utterly rough

June 7, 2006
We attended the housewarming for Michael Lehrer’s new office, over in Silverlake, a neighborhood I have visited before. Michael had been born, attended school nearby, worked for others, including Frank Gehry, then had gone on his own, to the city’s benefit. Now he had fitted out an existing modest structure as an architectural office. The doors were raised open, out to the garden, the jazz trio was mixing it up, the martinis were flowing, and the architects were hugging each other—and they meant it.

My former Tulane U. classmate, and Gehry-alum, Bob Hale, had taken me to see his old friend Michael’s new professional digs, an event that drew neighbors (Michael Maltzan), other LA architects (John Friedman and Alice Kimm), PR folk (Julie Taylor), and writers (Alison Milionis, who writes for Record).

Robert Ivy, FAIA

LA is not New York

June 7, 2006
In LA, people open their windows, even in the June Gloom (that moment when the Pacific lays a blanket of cool fog on the city at the inauguration of summer), and anything can happen. It made me elegiac, thinking if only New York could work the same way—but we’re 180 degrees apart. The differences are immense. Not just 3,000 miles and a continent, but people. I actually stood in an architect’s office, where a professional colleague, an old friend and fellow worker, praised the work of his friend. Do you think that would ever happen in New York? As much as I love the place, for a variety of reasons, never.

Robert Ivy, FAIA

25,000 descend on LA

Welcome to Architectural Record's AIA 2006 blog!

Editors will be posting their thoughts on their experiences at the convention throughout the week. Check back here to find postings on seminars, products, parties, and anything else our editors are up to in Los Angeles.

And, of course, feel free to make comments on our blog entries or, to otherwise send along your thoughts, you can contact me at russell_fortmeyer@mcgraw-hill.com.

Let's go...