AR+D Publishing

Thom: This characterization of practice as a kind of accumulation of small actions takes cues from Dana Cuff, who diagnosed a common dissonance between what design professionals—from partners to interns—believe the practice of architecture to entail and the professional activities they routinely perform. The premium that architectural education places on individual authorship and design, she argues, leads to disappointment in the managerial reality of nurturing projects to completion. We came to the task of managing a building practice with eyes wide open. After years of working more in the academic realm of exhibitions, research, and installations, we made a deliberate shift toward a more client-driven model of practice in order to begin translating those ideas into physical buildings that would have a life outside the speculative realm of representation. We’ve found that the collaborative nature of

T+E+A+M that made those early projects fun and surprising has enabled us to extend those channels of collaboration to clients and others involved.

What is the responsibility of the architect, and how do you think it has changed throughout your career?

Thom: There are a couple of different ways you could frame responsibility, and there are many ways in which this has changed in the last twenty years. There’s the issue of sustainability, but I don’t think there’s much disagreement that it’s an important part of what we do and should always be considered. More recently, there’s the responsibility to be inclusive and consider how architecture intersects with social justice. But I have a more romantic view about the architect’s role in society, as a visionary or as a critic or as someone who offers a different worldview compared to dominant ideologies. We have an opportunity and responsibility to offer a critique of the world through buildings we design. Meredith: I agree and would also add that critique is much more collaborative today. There’s an awareness and a willingness to work across different fields, acknowledging that executing a building design isn’t the work of a singular author. There are so many people involved, and the responsibilities associated with building are distributed across an ecology of different disciplines. A successful architect can assert a vision while acknowledging the different roles and contributions of many other individuals.

Thom: Right, and I’ll put a fine point on that. An architect can positively affect the world through design. You know, there are all kinds of ways an architect can be ethical, but if it doesn’t show up in the building, we’re not doing our part. There are lots of different hats you can put on. You can go out and be an activist. But we have a responsibility to make our beliefs and provocations manifest in the buildings that we design in addition to the ways we conduct ourselves as professionals and as citizens.

How have recent global events related to racial injustice and public health affected your approach to practice?

Meredith: In different ways, the recent reckoning with racial injustice and need for physical distancing have absolutely affected our practice and the relationships that compose our work as architects and educators. Putting buildings in the world is not the only, or most immediate, way that architects contribute to social and racial justice. It’s important to pay attention to how we conduct ourselves as professionals—hiring, giving, forming collaborations, taking clients—and as teachers within an institution. So much of what sets the expectations of our profession begins in school, and each of us feels committed to shifting the culture away from what we experienced as students, where architecture was presented to us as an exclusive domain of the initiated, toward a pedagogical environment that elevates BIPOC and other marginalized voices and prioritizes anti-racist approaches to the built environment.

Thom: Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the repercussions are still rippling through vulnerable populations and the economy. Supply-chain problems are driving up building material costs, housing insecurity is on the rise, school-aged kids have lost a lot of ground, and despite the slowdown in travel in 2020, atmospheric carbon continues to increase at cataclysmic levels—these are some of the issues that our discipline will be contending with in years to come.

Where does your aesthetic sensibility come from? What are your sources of inspiration?

Meredith: It’s a process of discovery. We begin by sorting out shared intuitions and values for a project. Our different approaches often lead us to certain aesthetics that surprise us.