You, Architect

It seems as though in order to understand what a modern-day architect is would take a lot of effort alone.  As previously noted, the term “architect” can refer to a lot of different things, and understanding the place of the contemporary architect is being continually debated because the scope of work now is so broad that no one person can possibly know everything there is to know about the built environment.  I think that the biggest shift in our idea of what architecture is has come in tandem with a shift in what we as a society have come to recognize as space.

Besides space being the final frontier, it has become as much a metaphorical context for human connection as it is a physical location.

In other words, space is as much this concept in our head as it is the place where we are.  It is also something we can all agree that designers have the ability to manipulate.  This is where connections can be found.

Ok, so what I’m getting at is that space can be created digitally, musically, structurally, metaphorically, etc.  Close your eyes and listen to Handel or Mozart, and the spaces created in your mind are automatically different than Lil Wayne and Big Sean, who of course architect the flow, rapping stories on stories.  There is also digital space, with programmers building chat rooms and web sites and hard drive locations, all with their own intricacies and parameters.

So yeah, the world has stolen our profession.  But I think the world has also figured out that the deviser, maker, or creator of anything is whatever it needs to be, because my degree requirements definitely did not cover software architecture.  What do you define it as?  Has your opinion of Architecture changed?  Let me know in the comments below.

Building of the Day:
Nazi Resort Rennovation
Architect Unkown
Rügen Prora, Germany
1936, 2022

I, Architect

Being the grammar Nazi that I am (and please know that my grammar isn’t perfect), I wonder about words in that mystical, philosophical hour before dawn (which has been universally agreed upon by the powers that be as 4am).  Designers, you know 4am.  The wee hours after working hard on a project when most people have visions of sugarplums, we live inside our Revit and Sketchup models or write and rewrite that spec we forgot about.  It was here that I began to think about what it means to be an architect.  So I began to google just what an architect is.  What I found was amazing, and a little surprising.  What, praytell?  THE WORLD HAS KIDNAPPED OUR PROFESSION!!!

Im serous.

Having had to look for jobs recently, this is what I found:

So my first thought is yes! there’s literally thousands of jobs I can apply for!  And then I look at the descriptions which have anything but what the textbook definition of what an architect actually is.

Or so I thought.

Besides the universal idea that an Architect is a divine manipulator of space that designs great monuments to creation, I also found this:

Anything.  Like the Constitution.  Or a shoe.  Or a garbage bag.  But really, when you look at this definition, it can apply to a lot of things.  So what does that mean for Architects?  If other professions have now claimed the right to call themselves by this name, which many perceive to be a prestigious title, of what use is it?  How do we use it?  How do we explain and describe what we do others? Because quite frankly, my parents till have absolutely no idea what I do every day at work. For all they know, I could be a Software Architect or Solution Architect.

I guess the biggest question I have at this moment is, what is an Architect, and what does an Architect do that makes him or her different, or the same, as other modern professionals?

If if were up to good old Vitruvius, an architect has to create things that are: strong, beautiful, and functional.  Translating to today’s standards, does it work, does it look good, and is it durable, long lasting, timeless, etc.  Now, Vitruvius had all the time in the world to become an accomplished Renaissance Architect, Philosopher, and Artist,  mostly because Instagram and Twitter didn’t exist yet.  Otherwise, he would probably just be working at a university somewhere and making his rounds doing Ted talks and creating cool, confusing installations for museums of modern art.

But since Vitruvius isn’t the be all, end all of architectural philosophers (and trust me, there are hundreds of thousands of people who have put in their two cents about what is and isn’t architecture over the centuries), somehow this mad race of technology has redefined what Architecture is, and what Architects can do. So, I decided to do some research and see what the heck an architect really is, because some people don’t know.  Not everyone can be Mies now.  I mean, you could try.  I have perfectly good step-by-step instructions on how to be the next Mies, Frank (there’s a few Franks), or Zaha.  Let’s see how this goes, shall we?

Building of the Day:
Gebeze Industioal Vocaitonal High School
Gebeze,Koaceli, Turkey
Norm Architects
2015

A Blank Canvas

As part of my explorations on achieving Domus, I used Iowa State as the background for a spatial study.  As previously mentioned, the ISU campus is home to dorms that are over a hundred years old, as well as those that are currently under construction.  Many adult lives began in these resident halls, and many more will be shaped and molded through these transient spaces.  Because my educational background began in Interior Design, I understand buildings as a series of moments.  Small spaces build to create bigger ones, and so I have focused my case studies on a single unit within a building as a way to create guidelines to aid my design process.  Below are my findings.

 

Oak Hall

Built in 1938, this historically all-women’s dorm has been home to thousands of students over the course of almost a century.  The building features hardwood floors, traditional dorm-style living, and with it’s adjoining twin Elm Hall, there is a dining hall right there in the building.  The typical two-person room is about 180 square feet and offers a closet for each roommate.  Many rooms come with a lofted bed for added space and ISU’s standard dorm furniture is provided.  The advantages of this layout are that there is designated space for each tenant.  The disadvantage of this space is that the space taken up by two closets could be used more productively.

Helser Hall

The building on the site currently is Helser Hall.  In the 1950’s, construction boomed on campus as new additions, research centers, and new dorms were being built in the greater Ames area.  The population had grown by about two thousand students since 1940, plateauing at about 8,000, and tuition was about $65 per quarter.  Helser was a phased project, with ground breaking in 1957 and again in 1963.  These dorms feature 170 square foot rooms with a built-in closet partition, desk, and dresser unit.  This gives the rest of the dorm space for two beds and one additional desk.  Beds are not lofted, and they are metal framed instead of the newer standard of wood framed furniture that take up more space.  The advantages of this dorm are similar to Oak-Elm.  There is designated space for each roommate, and there is some freedom to customize within the unit.  Its location is also ideal, sitting at the heart of campus, with close access to State Gym, Union Drive Community Center, and many study buildings.  Disadvantages are the same as the Oak-Elm unit.  The built-in wall unit limits where furniture can be placed in the room.

Eaton Hall

Built in 2003, Eaton Hall and its younger brother Martin Hall are the most recent new construction additions to the ISU Department of Residence, besides Buchanan II, currently under construction.  Eaton Hall is home to all suite-style dorm rooms, where singles, doubles, and two-room suites all have access to private bathrooms.  Right next door to Helser, Eaton has all of the convenience of Union Drive living and the luxury of a more private dorm experience.  Rooms are a minimum of 300 square feet for two people, with the coveted corner suites having maybe twice that, and some of the rooms are handicap accessible to accommodate students with mobility challenges.  Advantages are that the quality and location of the building make it in especially high demand.  Disadvantages are that students have to be responsible for the cleaning maintenance of their own bathroom facility, which can cause conflicts among roommates.

Findings

From my research in dorm trends, what college students need, and what they want, and what administration is interested in, I have combined my spatial studies with this information to develop a template for student housing for both traditional dorm and modern suite housing situations.  I have had a chance to do some digging, and a traditional dorm with closets like Oak or Helser Hall is not reasonable with modern requirements.  Dorms need to be open, flexible, and essentially a blank canvas for living and learning.  For traditional dorms, I believe a clean,  open space with a little more elbow room will be sufficient.  Having lived in Eaton Hall, I believe that there is a lot of wasted space in these rooms in the entry area near the bathrooms.  I am proposing a tighter configuration with a similar layout to Eaton Hall for suites.  If these rooms are to be housed in the same building, I am designing with a consistent dimensional width of 20 feet.  Below are my proposals for single rooms, suites, and a community bathroom.

Single/Double Unit and Community Bathroom

At 200 square feet, this layout allows for the university’s standard furniture to fit comfortably, lofted or unlofted.  It has room for the bare essentials and a few more things, if wanted.  The restroom is designed to accommodate about ten to twelve of these single units.  The current standard on campus is about a student-to-shower ratio of about 6:1, with some being more or less depending on these age of the residence hall.

Suite-Style Living

In order to integrate suite-style housing, I have proposed a floor plan that is a combination of what has been seen in Eaton Hall and what can be seen in the current Buchanan Hall floor plans.  The difference being that the layout is tighter than what is seen in Eaton Hall, but has a more accessible bathroom layout than is seen in Buchanan.  The 250 square foot unit keeps space and privacy in mind.

Next Steps

Using these as guidelines, I will combine these rooms with site and context to find a design draft that works out for everyone.  My next and final steps will be taking this research into Revit and applying it in virtual space.

Building of the Day:
Orestad College – Tietgen Dormitory
Copenhagen, Denmark
Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects
2005

Learning Happens Everywhere

In order to understand how to create the sense of Domus that I described earlier, I had to research a little bit about campus history, and campus future.  The college dorm room is a multi-use, multipurpose space, and trends in buildings have ranged from the utilitarian, one-size-fits-all model to a blank canvas, open to anything and everything.  Just on the Iowa State campus alone, you can do everything from share a small room with one stranger and share a bathroom with thirty strangers, to moving into an apartment where you and your children can live until your degree is done.  Because a college student isn’t always your straight out of high school teenager, campuses are accommodating to a variety of student lifestyles and issues.  I have chosen to focus on traditional 4-5 year student living.

Trends are shifting constantly in college dorm design.  However, one thing is clear: Dorms are no longer just for sleeping.  Building Design + Construction Magazine Online says it best when they write “They’re not just dorms anymore.”  Millennials want more, and expect more from the college experience. BD+C notes that if you ask them, things like WiFi and a little elbow room are essential.  Many of them come from homes where they have gaming systems, smartphones and tablets, and wireless connections to everything.  When I worked in student services at Iowa State, I could remember hearing the simultaneous groans of the students whenever the network went down on campus, or when a fuse blew from too much power being distributed from an outlet.  On the other hand, College and university staff are more focused on rentable space, functionality of the buildings, and whether or not parents are going to be willing to spend the money to send their kids across country to live on their campus.  Residence halls have just as much impact in the decision making process for parents and students as the major of study or classroom resources available at a university.

Jeff Vredevoogd of Herman-Miller understands the importance of university resources and their distribution across campus buildings.  Herman-Miller’s published concept of “People, Place, and Pedagogoy” emphasizes the quality of the in-between spaces.  Social space is just as important as classroom space because learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom.  Collaborative learning happens everywhere, from tutoring sessions in the library to impromptu midnight cramming in the dorm hours before an exam.  Learning is a social experience, and architecture should reflect that.  Many newer dorm buildings are providing versatile common spaces that can be used for both recreation and auxiliary education.  This may be as simple as adding a whiteboard and table to small room, or building open-use cubicles where students can work alone, but not isolated.  The theme that I took to heart the most is that living and learning both involve community.

Gensler echoed Herman-Miller’s theory on living and learning, but raises a crucial question in the design of dormitory structures: How much space do we actually need in the dorm itself?  Millennials, being children of the Baby Boomers and post-boomers, are looking for special features and extra amenities, but as I mentioned in my previous blog, dormitory buildings are transient spaces.  Students live in them for a few months, a year, maybe two, and then move on to the next stage in the growing up process.  Gensler thus emphasizes the importance of the purity of campus housing.  College dorms do not need to have the works.  They can be simple, versatile spaces that do their job, without all of the swimming pools, and game rooms, and workout centers that some buildings provide.  Housing facilities should blend into the fabric of the campus, and connect students to amenities and resources that are already available elsewhere.  A good design will provide students with what they need, and give access to things that they want.

Understanding site context will be key in my next steps.  Although I have been a student at Iowa State for eight years, looking at it from a designer’s perspective as opposed to a student perspective will prove to be difficult.  What are the bare necessities for college life?  What has been proven successful at Iowa State?  How can I add something new and positive to the campus fabric? In any case, I know that a student will always find a way to make these spaces their own.  My goal in these next couple of weeks is to design a building that allow students to be themselves, learn, and grow.

Building of the Day:
Buchanan II
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa, United States
The Opus Group

Domus

Dormitory (n) eng. inf. “dorm”
1. a building on a school campus where students can live
2. a residence hall providing rooms for individuals or for groups, usually without private baths
3. from latin dormitorium “sleeping place” from dormire “to sleep”

Domus (n) latin. f
1. home, household

Common (adj) eng.
1. belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question
2. pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture; public

Every adult who was a traditional college student has memories of their first dorm.  From the posters we put on the walls to the things that happened in the spaces between them, college dormitories hold experiences.  There’s a lot of firsts, a lot of lasts, and a lot of growing up.  Dreams are made and broken, and others are achieved.  People fight and fall in love, get serious about studying, get drunk on weekends.  There is loud music, epic movies, and anything microwavable.  And now, you can find the greatest of these shenanigans on YouTube.

The one thing that these buildings all over the world have in common is their sense of home away from home.  There is an entire commercial season dedicated to creating a sense of home. Back to School has been partnered in recent years with Back to College or Back to Campus campaigns at most retail establishments. College students can now buy cheap, colorful furniture just for school.  Target even made an app for it!

College culture has changed over the years, but a few things remain the same.  The relationships that we make during our college years are the one which will last us a lifetime, and many of those relationships are made during late night study sessions, trips to the dining hall, or over a load of laundry.  Interestingly enough, however, dorm life is transient.  It is temporary.  Students don’t stay forever.  They live in these buildings for a few years, and then go on to other housing, whether it be an apartment, new house, or back home to the parental units.  A college dorm must fit the needs of individual students, but at the same time be standard enough to fit the needs of college life.

Iowa State University is a great documentation of how dorm-style living has changed over time.  With facilities over 100 years old and buildings built a decade ago, we can see the progression through time of what still works for student populations, and what doesn’t.  We can also see what upgrades have been made to buildings to accommodate modern student life. Oak Hall, for example, was the first female dormitory on campus, built in the 1930’s.  It was eventually joined with Elm to create today’s Oak-Elm all girls dorm and has individual rooms with common bathroom facilities.  It also features a dining hall built into the basement of the building.  Eaton Hall, built in 2003, is a co-ed dorm with individual and shared suites.  These suites have semi-private bathrooms and large common areas.  It is one of the only a few completely handicap accessible dorm-style buildings on campus, and students with mobility impairments have first priority on room choice.  Friley Hall, the oldest, largest, and most altered building on campus houses over 1200 people and is a small village in its own right.

My latest project takes us next door to Helser Hall.  Helser was built in 1957 with an additional four wings being added to the south in1963. A few wings on the north end were demolished to make way for the Union Drive Community Center, which was built in 2003. The four story traditional dorm‐style structure is currently home to four learning communities and has a total capacity of 713 students. All units are either double or triple units. It currently has no elevator, no air conditioning and no other promotable amenities, unlike many of the other residence halls near it on campus.

The goal of this project is to design a new housing facility for the Union Drive area. The new dorm must increase the living capacity to approx. 900 students and add amenities that will increase rentable value. Required amenities are laundry facilities, a computer lab, community kitchen, small meeting rooms, and lounge/study area. The building should have a combination of single, double, and triple rooms, suites with private bathrooms, as well as community bathroom arrangements. The buildings should also include a Hall Director suite and a guest housing suite on ground level and office space for Resident Assistants. The site should maintain 50‐70% of the current parking spaces, incorporate an outdoor courtyard area and replace any felled trees.

More details to come later.

Building of the Day:
University of Twente – Calslaan Dormitory
The Netherlands
Arons en Gelauff Architecten

Densifying Downtown: Veteran’s Village

The great migration out of the downtown area that I described in my first blog about Las Vegas created an interesting population density issue, which I mentioned in my second blog.  In the middle of this density issue, my team and I have taken interest in a gem that can be used to as  a model case study to regenerate downtown Las Vegas: Veteran’s Village.

Veteran’s Village is a non-profit, privately run service center for retired and homeless armed forces personnel.  They cater to soldiers from the surrounding area, with a community-based helping initiative.  With donations from Las Vegas community members and businesses, they have begun to build a solid reputation for solving the homeless issues in the area with a housing first model.  They have taken over an old hotel to practice this model, and they are currently always at capactiy.

Arnold Stalk, one of the co-founders of Veteran’s Village, is looking to expand into the greater Las Vegas community, and my studio team and I are very interested in using this initiative to drive our project.  Stalk, or as we call him, Arnie, is very interested in creating modular housing using shipping containers as the primary structural element. Our group is planning to propose an example of what a container village would look like, that serves Veteran’s Village.

 Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs is also one of the foundational theories for this project. The Housing First help model immediately begins to resolve homeless veterans’ need for physiological fulfillment and a feeling of safety.  Many homeless help programs that use this theory have seen success through allowing people to have a stable home, even if it is only temporary.  Veteran’s Village, as a part of its services, provides food and basic supplies to those who need it, even if they are not residents of the facility.  Once someone has a stable shelter and therefore a sense of safety, these people now have the opportunity to be a part of the VV community.  The wonderful thing about focusing specifically on a population of former soldiers is that there is already an engrained sense of community in this particular social group.  The loyalty and comoraderie of fellow soldiers is an integral part of military culture.  In Veteran’s Village specifically, there is an understood, unwritten code where they work together and help each other out.  The satisfaction that comes from helping others builds belonging and esteem, both are essential tiers of Maslow’s system. In the Veteran’s Village model, self-actualization manifests when clients find permanent residency and a steady income.  In some cases times, they choose to stay in Veteran’s Village and be a permanent part of the community.

Diversifying the types of residences available to Veteran’s Village will allow for the program to work in a variety of ways, primarily expanding on the sense of community that is already present and growing in the program.  It will also allow for permanent members to have a fully functioning home available to them.  For clients with families, it gives them the extra elbow room that is not available in the current facilites. In the next few weeks, my group and I will be exploring how to create a diverse, economically conscious, and environtmentally friendly proposal for the next stages of the Veteran’s Village, and in turn, Las Vegas Mid Strip area.

For more information about the current proposal in progress, visit the Las Vegas page of my website.

To donate to Veteran’s Village, visit the Donate page of the Veteran’s Village website.

Architecture of the Day: Las Vegas Veteran’s Memorial Firm: KGA Architecture Sculptor: Douwe Blumberg

How to be a Starchitect

So… after doing a bit of research of award-winning and legendary architects, I have finally created my master plan for becoming the greatest architect of all time.  It’s not that hard… if you have the time, money, and cojones!

Step 1: Go through a greuling and expensive educational process to begin to understand your place in the world.

Step 2: Conclude through your studies that you are God’s greatest gift to creation.

Step 3: Quickly work your way to the top of the social ladder, making sure to learn from other older, cooler architects (and/or architectural philosophers) along the way.  Be sure to work under a firm who already has award-winning work.  Brag about said success, even though you probably only did the door and window schedules.  Maybe even the bathroom details.  But no one else needs to know that.

Step 4: Fight tooth an nail against other, less competent architects to become a project lead. Begin global conquest immediately. There is no time to lose. You are now in control.

Step 5: Design the perfect box.  This will be a monumental box.  This box will have huge windows, strange connections to metal and stone, but it will still be a box. A wonderful, beautiful box of hope and wonder.

Step 6: See your marvelous creation through to completion.  Accept no substitutions. If you must, fire half your staff and start again. Only the best for your divine box of celestial magic.

Step 7: Take a very philisophical picture in front of this box.  No smiling, because you are an aspiring starchitect, so you must be VERY serious.  Buy a pair of glasses to make you look legit.  Wireframe, not plastic, duh.  Wear all black, and make sure the photographer takes the picture at some weird angle so that you can see the beautiful profile of your magnificent creation.

Step 8: Host a coctail-attire event so that the who’s who of Architecture can marvel at your realized vision of perfection.  Invite the press, but ignore them for half of the event.  Assign interns to answer very calculated answers about your masterpiece.

Step 9: Wait in agony for the reviews to come in about your box.  If most of the reviews are positive, continue to step 10.  If most reviews are negative, go back to step 5 and continue on your path to greatness.  They will understand your genius someday.  Just wait and see.

Step 10: Rant and rave to reporters, news casters, bloggers, tweeters, and random persons on the street about your unparalleled competency as a designer and how perfect your box is.  Take super candid, but of course perfectly staged, work-in-progress pictures, publish amazing, philisophical articles in magazines, and harass a few (not many) nay-sayers along the way… just for for the sake of publicity.

Step 11: Write a memoir of your most eccentric conceptual, almost impossible ideas and concepts about Architecture.  Publish it in limited stock to make it more valuable.  Promote the hell out of it. Fake your own death.  Bask in the glory of your fame.

Step 12: Design another perfect box.

Step 13: Commence world conquest. Because that was the goal all along.

Building of the Day

Institute for Sound and Vision
Hilversum, The Netherlands
Firm: Neutelings Riedijk Architects

Discussing Downtown: Las Vegas City Structure

I have been fortunate enough to visit many cities during my academic career at Iowa State.  I have been to Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, New York, and most recently our studio did a site visit to Las Vegas, Nevada as part of our initial site studies.  I won’t go too much into the historical context of the city.  That was covered in my last blog a few weeks ago.  I have to say, Las Vegas might be the most interesting city that I have visited yet.  The history of the city has made the urban grid very fractured.  Because of this, I decided to do a case study on downtown areas of a few urban areas to see what makes a successful city center.

I had to first generate a clear definition of downtown.  From doing a little research, I have concluded that the term “downtown” refers the heart of a city.  It is the city’s financial epicenter, where trade takes place.  People migrate to and from downtown to live, work and play.  It is a source of entertainment, a citywide destination for commerce and culture. Regardless of scale, the downtown area lies at the very core of city and town life. The downtown area holds the city’s identity and heritage. It is a reflection of the city as a whole. If a city is the sum of its parts, then downtown is the constant that everything else is based upon.  Besides just being the epicenter of a city, the downtown of any metropolitan area is a place of constant human interaction.

Successful city centers have easy access, a variety of resources and services available, and the ability to be utilized at various temporal markers. I have found that the formula for a successful downtown area isn’t cut and dry. However, we can look at other successful city centers to understand how our own downtowns are doing well, and where our cities can make some improvements. Many booming metropolitan areas have a variety of attractions, businesses of varying sizes, and easy access to prime destinations and city resources. Oftentimes, there is a rich history and heritage evident in downtown areas, and people gather to be a part of the communal experiences of urban life.

In order to see specifically what was needed in Las Vegas, I needed a reference point.  I am most familiar with Chicago, so I chose this city as a comparative study.  As a constant, I looked at one square mile of Chicago and one square mile of Las Vegas to see what the similarities and differences were.  My findings were pretty surprising.  The Magnificent Mile in Chicago and the downtown area of Las Vegas are about the same size, but Chicago is much more of a walkable city than Las Vegas.  This is due to the density of the city itself.  Chicago has street after street of storefront businesses, restaurants, and services on the pedestrian level, and they built up.  The upper floors hold many busineses, and apartments, and parking facilities.  Las Vegas has many vacant lots and 1-2 story buildings, which make the city and the street feel larger than it actually is.

This lack of density is actually great for the city.  Las Vegas has the opportunity to become an urban planning pioneer as the example for what 21st century urbanism can be.  It is a blank canvas with great potential.  I am hoping that our studio becomes the catalyst for what we can eventually see as the future of post millenial urban life.

My website has the full case study, as well as some additional information about the studio and what we are doing.  Check it out at www.zanetajones.com.

Building of the Day:
The Golden Nugget
Las Vegas, Nevada
1946

Defining Downtown: Las Vegas Case Study

The notion of downtown comes from the original downtown: Manhattan, and the idea that “downtown” was the southern end of the island, down towards the bay.  There is also uptown, midtown, Greek town, China Town… you get the picture.  As the term traveled from New York City to other parts of the country, the idea of downtown, has inherently remained this idea that there is a core to the city, the heart.  The place where people go to see and be seen.  The place where people from various places come to hang out, see a movie, go shopping, go out to eat, work, and (if you can affort it) to live.  Recorded there is the history of the city, in the form of monumental or miniscule structures.  Things grow, and change, and morph.  There are high rise apartments and skyscrapers, street art, and garbage, food trucks and the homeless.  There are greasy spoon restaurants that will blow your mind, museums of modern art and science, parks and public spaces, an the best shopping in town.

Most major cities grow and evolve through trade, and manufacturing.  They were distribution hubs for the area, generally next to a large source of water, such as a river or ocean.  The Industrial Revolution brought jobs to major cities, and they grew in wealth, population and height.  Skylines of concrete, metal, and glass created new landscapes, new jobs, and new identities for cities.  Downtown areas became dense with offices and restaurants, theaters, schools, art, culture, and international populations. Las Vegas is not your typical city.

Vegas had similar beginnings to other cities, in that it evolved as a trading post connecting Los Angeles and Santa Fe on the Old Spanish Trail.  This little post, pocketed in a valley of the Rocky Mountains and near Lake Mead was an oasis in the desert.  Railroads were eventually built, and little by little this trading post grew into a bustling town that was known as the only stopping point for travelers and workers across the desert.  With the State of Nevada lifting of the prohibition laws about gaming in 1931, the city began to gain profits for the local economy through gambling from the travelers who passed through the city.

By the 1950’s there was a booming string of casinos and the mob had moved in and established themselves as powerful underground forces in the city economy.  Downtown Las Vegas on Freemont Street gaming and entertainment shifted south to The Strip on South Las Vegas Boulevard by the 1980’s through incentives to big time investors from the City of Las Vegas.  This backfired because the City of Las Vegas could not profit from the gambling revenue, only property tax, and The Strip is for the most part controlled by private companies and corporations.  Downtown Las Vegas saw a decrease in population and an increase in crime, and historic Freemont Street businesses and surrounding area suffered greatly.  Buildings were abandoned, homeless moved in, and the Downtown Las Vegas area saw a decrease in the quality of life.

Las Vegas was similar to Detroit, in that the city had one major source of income that they were completely dependent upon.  Once that source of revenue collapsed in the 1980’s and early 90’s, so did the city.  All of the middle class and wealthy peoplem migrated to the suburbs and the poor were left to the city center.  This left a condition in which there were no jobs, no desire to live there and the city was desparately trying to make money on a dying tourist economy.  The landscape became a series of vacant lots and towering hotels, while a few abandoned homes lay fragmented in between.

The early 2000’s saw a great change in the city when Zappos came in and invested in the city, buying up properties and strategically developing them in ways meant to revive the city center.  Projects that included privately owned spaces that the public can access such as Container Park as well as creating a network of business startups and community services through The Downtown Project were the genesis for the rebirth of the city.  Coupled with a renewed Freemont Street Experience, Las Vegas began to recover.  City buildings began to take over some of the vacant lot while developers built expensive condos for visiting millionaires.

Today, the downtown experience is still fragmented, but slowly growing.  New construction is happening, and cultural attractions like the Art District are taking over abandoned buildings.  Our goal this semester is to help define what the new Las Vegas will look like.  Our major objectives are connecting the Freemont Street Experience with the Las Vegas Strip, increasing population and walkability in the area in between, and provide a variety of resources for the area.

C

Click above to see a slideshow of photos I took of a different side of Las Vegas.

The Stratosphere Hotel Architect Ned Baldwin Las Vegas, NV

Architecture is for the elite.

Let it be known to the world that the study of architecture is for the few, the brave, the privledged.  Not everyone is able to study this trade for many reasons, a few of which I will explain below.  The more I think about it, the more I realize how many of the odds are against women and/or people of color.  This does not make it impossible for us to become Architects, but it does make it hard.  Here are the top 4 reasons that I believe women and people of color may have difficulties becoming and remaining architects.  More to come later.

1. Architecture was “discovered” by men.
The occupation of architect as we know it today has existed in some form or another since before Egypt conquered the Nile.  Because being the designer of a building requied skills such as math, physics, geometry, wood carpentry, brick or stone masonry, knowledge of metals, etc. women could not be architects because they were not educated in such things until more modern times.  Therefore, all great architects before the Industrial Revolution were men.  Most great architects since then are men as well. (and by great, I mean the ones that made it to the standard American textbooks.)  It was a little easier for women to get into the Interior Design world because that could involve decorating homes, where women spent most of their time.  They could hire other women to to the work.

2. Men can’t bear children.
Gender re-assignment aside, men don’t have to worry about the blessings and complications that come with pregnancy.  Working on a building project is a very stressful and time-consuming situation.  There are late nights, early mornings, project phase deadlines, and multiple groups of people to coordinate.  Heightened amounts of stress can cause women to miscarry or have other pregnancy complications.  A project cannot be put on hold for a person on bed rest or maternity leave.  The job must go on, or you may lose business.  This is great for women who decide not to have children.  However women who want a family many times they end up quitting their jobs because of the inflexibilty of work schedules.

3. School is expensive.
Being an Architect requires at least a 4-5 year bachelor’s program.  Some students go on to graduate school to further develop their skills before entering the job force.  Some students begin their Architectural studies in grad school, which could take anywhere from 3-5 years depending on the program.  For many schools,  Architecture majors have a heightened tuition rate compared to the average student.
Students usually learn the art of hand drafting, for which they are many times required or encouraged to buy their own supplies.  A starter kit for basic drafting is probably going to cost a student around $150-200 in their first semester.  Many times students build models of their projects, which can cost anywhere between $50 and $400 to make, also only good for one (sometimes two) semester’s project.  Learning the history, theories, and technical aspects of architcture requires textbooks, which can cost anywhere from $20 to $200 per book, sometimes more for specialized subjects.  These books may be used throughout the student’s education, or may only be useful for one semester.  As a collegiate student, most majors require general education courses or courses outside of the architect’s major, which usually requires more textbooks.
All students in architecture will use some sort of computer-aided drafting software.  This requires an exceptional machine.  Computers for these programs range anywhere from $950 to $2500, depending on the make, model, and features of the computer.  That’s not including the software that goes on them.  Many students buy an Adobe Design Suite of some kind, and with student discounts may spend anywhere from $200 to $500 on th software.  Some drafting software is free to students, but some is not.  Those software programs can cost hundreds to install.
Doing all of this homework means that students are probably going to have to enroll in campus dining plans, which can be expensive, or order fast food that delivers.  Let’s estimate that in one semester a student orders approximately 20 meals (which is very conservative), and those 20 meals cost about $12 a piece.  That puts us at $240 per semester.
Not including tuition and living expenses, assuming that a student will buy 3 textbooks and a computer, this gives us a grand total range of anywhere from $1600 to $45oo in out-of-pocket expenses in the first year of the architectural education program.  Low-income families, single parent households, or families with many children can’t always afford to help a student in this situation, especially if that sudent is a first-generation college student.  Many people of color come from these family situations.  Scholarships and grants are generally applied to tuition or living expenses, but not for general study expenses.  The solution many times is to get a job and/or take out credit, in the form of credit cards and student loans, which have high interest rates, which require applications that have the potential to be denied.

4. More developed countries have more opportunities for women.
Living in the United States or other more developed countries such as Canada, Great Britain, and China just to name a few allows for more women to have educational opportunities presented to them.  In other lesser developed countries familes who are in the middle class or above are able to give their children opportunities in higher education.  Sometimes it is not just an economical reason as to why women aren not able to hold occupations requiring higher education, it is cultural.  There are still many places around the world where women are seen as being severly inferior to men and it is acceptable to abuse them and keep them under strong male control.  There are very few opportunities for these women to excel in these situations.

Odds against us, we have proven our worth in the design world over the past two centuries or so.  It’s great to see what we come up with next!

Mahindra World City
Tamil Nadu, India
Firm: Shilpa
Lead Architect: Sheila Sri Prakash