This article is part of our Women in Architecture interview series, exclusive to The Architect’s Take. Amy Eliot of Tom Eliot Fisch brings a perspective on working in larger corporate firms. She has notable expertise working with institutional, public, and non-profit clients, enhanced by a diverse portfolio of work that includes cultural arts facilities, corporate interiors and residential work.

Why did you start your own firm?

I’m in a slightly different position, as my firm, Tom Eliot Fisch, is a partnership. Partnerships are different and challenging like any type of relationship; all the partners have to really WANT it to work and be equally committed to that.

Women forget that we can go with our instinct, we can trust our intuitions. Sometimes women at big firms or in competitive work situations take the attitude that “I can make it work… I have to make it work… I’ll do whatever it takes, suck it up without complaint” – but that’s not listening to that inner voice. We try so hard to accommodate ourselves to our situation, to please the people around us, and we end up sacrificing our own needs.

Is it only women who do this?

Architecture can be a very confrontational, very confidence-driven profession. In some client situations, such as working with non-profits, there are often more women at the table; by contrast, some panel discussions may include one woman, or one minority representative. There are fundamental differences in working styles between men and women in how one feels respected, engaged, and supported.

Can you provide more details?

There’s a difference in communication style and in the overall design and decision-making process. Women are more comfortable being consensual and have less need to dominate. There’s less chest-bumping, if you know what I mean. But… some of my biggest leaps forward in my career were where I did exactly that.

I’ve had some interesting experiences with a female housing developer who’s a Vice President at a large national Real Estate Investment Trust. She’s an interesting model as a highly successful woman in a male-dominated industry. She’s been my client on three projects – but we also sit on the board of a non-profit together, in which I was at one point the president and she was a Board member. Our roles were thus reversed. In many ways, this non-profit work has significantly broadened our relationship.

Why did you choose to go for your license?

I never thought otherwise. At the time I was getting my Master’s degree in architecture school in the late 70s and early 80s, women were still in the minority by 3 to 1. The women in my class knew why they wanted to be there. Getting licensed was a key part of the process. On the other side, I’ve known men who have chosen not to get licensed as well.

What has changed is that today, the types of practices have diversified. What constitutes a design practice is shifting in a way that encourages people to apply design skills in more expansive ways that don’t require licensing. People don’t see the value in getting licensed if they can do what they want without it.

The Millennial generation doesn’t care much for the old-school approach.

The Millennial generation is well aware of the situation. They see the writing on the wall. And, they sometimes come with a sense of entitlement. They don’t see the same model of “the licensed architect” as I did back in the day. What they see are some highly successful people who have gone the non-traditional route in the world around them. They look at the traditional model and they don’t see why they should try to fit themselves into that slot.

Now, this so-called “traditional route” is the career path that is still defined mainly through the leadership of older, white males. For young people just out of school, licensing is not that exciting. Nor is getting FAIA (AIA Fellowship designation) the pinnacle of success for them. The whole idea of starting at the bottom and working their way up through the Internship Development Program does not appeal to them. They don’t want that bondage; they don’t want apprenticeship. They want freedom, options, fluidity – that sense of connectedness promised by the world of social media. Additionally, they are attracted by the idea of being entrepreneurs.

Have you been involved with professional associations such as the AIA?

There was a time when I was more active within the AIA than I am currently. At that time, I was one of a number of people of my generation in the Bay Area design community who could not relate to the goals and objectives of the AIA. Many of us felt that it did not prioritize design within its strategic and organizational thinking. But, you can’t complain if you’re not willing to step up to the plate to try to make change happen. You have to be willing to participate in changing the complexion of leadership in order to evolve the professional organizations. So I did; I served on the AIA-SF Board for one term, and revived a committee on design that had become dormant. The purpose of this Design Committee was to open a design dialogue both amongst ourselves and the community at large, and to have a larger influence on the chapter’s activities and goal-setting.

I also chaired the AIA-CC Monterey Design Conference in 2001. Then, a year later, I had my daughter. At a certain point I had to ask myself: Is this really where I want to put my energy? Someone once remarked to me that architects need a lot of stamina. And women may feel more pressure to pursue other things beside a full-bore career focus. They want to use that stamina in other ways. It’s important for us to define in our own terms what we want to do and how we want to do it.

There’s that sense that many women architects aren’t really willing to lead a firm without the immediate support of a life partner.

My friends and I used to joke about this over tennis, wondering, “So, how many women architects aren’t married to architects?” We’d try to see how many women architects we could think of who were still working primarily as designers – not HR, not research, not solely project management – where their firm partners were not also their life partners. There aren’t many firms in this country doing major institutional design work at a significant level that are led or co-led by a female design principal. Rarer still are the firms completely led by women doing that scale and type of work.

And here we wander into the topic of whether women can get away with the same assertiveness as men can.

It’s a fine line between being assertive and opinionated, one that can suddenly go all sideways on you. If you’re doing a large project with big institutional committees, it’s a negotiation act to keep the design intact and still bring everyone along with you. A university client, for example, may not respond well to the take-no-prisoners approach. You have to learn to filter your opinion and not bludgeon people with it.

Have you ever been frustrated by the attitudes of your female colleagues?

Rarely. Much less so than the males, actually. I’ve always worked really well with women. My frustrations, if any, came mainly from people who bought too much into the male-dominated party line  or acted significantly out of self-interest vs. the interests of the entire group. I’ve only had one female boss. In the large partnership firms where I worked prior to Tom Eliot Fisch, I always reported to a male boss. At times, I did have to fight for promotions.

The hidden agenda behind that question has to do with whether women professionals with new babies experience a drop in workplace performance – and why.

I’ve seen this as a problem of perception that happens with male employees, too – with anyone who wants to spend extended time with their family. In one past instance in a large corporate firm, the problem wasn’t so much the male employee as the attitudes of the senior management. This employee needed some extra family leave time after the birth of his child, and the management didn’t respect him for it. They were treating him like a woman, in other words. The firm paid lip service to “work/family balance” but then they were trash-talking this guy for wanting the extra time off regardless of family leave policies.

I actually had to intervene and stop the conversation. They were saying things like, “We can’t count on him… he’s under-performing… we can’t schedule him… he’s not useful enough… not profitable enough… it’ll create awkwardness in staffing,” and other excuses. The truth is, they didn’t want to be flexible themselves.

Having family obligations is often perceived as having divided loyalties: “Why can’t we count on you 150% like we used to?” This critique has been leveled equally at both genders. It becomes a juggling act – work commitment and reliability versus family time. Things are changing now, with alternative family structures (gay couples with kids, for example) and with men becoming more involved with their families out of choice and a desire to be part of their children’s lives.

Sometimes, women in this position think they can do it all: “I can make it work, I can juggle, I can stay up till 2 in the morning…” They don’t want to acknowledge early enough that they can’t do it – if your kid is sick, you have no choice but to  deal with it. But you can’t leave your boss hanging, either. It takes a lot of maturity to admit when it’s not working, and to ask for what you need. Sometimes that means acknowledging that you need to make a change.

Any truth to the notion that women are more likely than men to quit when they have a kid?

In past firms, I have seen instances where women worked, had a child, came back, but then eventually ended up leaving. The reasons they left weren’t so much their own lack of initiative as a lack of flexibility on the part of the firm that placed too much emphasis on a highly structured practice with “performance objectives”.

The question is more complex than a simple choice between work and childbearing. For women and men alike, it’s important to have control over our own destiny, and over our immediate situation. Then it can work. I know a woman who has a high-ranking position at a major management-consulting firm who managed to keep her position while working mainly at home when she had first one child, and then a second. She has the support of a mentor who both respects her and has the ability to back her up, and she takes seriously the idea of maintaining a high level of achievement.

With a top-down management structure, you’re just filling a need, and you’re therefore dispensable. With more supportive management, you’re more valued as an individual, but you still have to deliver, after mutually agreeing on what’s reasonable. You still have to manage expectations, on your part and on the part of the firm.

Women may be better off setting their own objectives, which can be performance or personal. Personal needs come into play and influence how they operate, and how they make decisions. Women have to affirm their own value, and not allow themselves to be defined by a single model of practice. It’s perfectly OK to move on to other things and carve out their own way of practicing. They will be happier and more successful doing it on their own terms.

The “mommy track” is patently unfair when applied as unofficial blanket policy, tacitly and silently.

I went through some of the psychology of the mommy track 11 years ago. I had just left Chong Partners, I was running the Monterey Design Conference, serving as Chair of the Architecture Department at CCA, and working full-time. Then I decided that I wanted to have a child.

You had your daughter completely solo, without even the support of a life partner. How did you keep your sanity?

Doing it on my own did complicate things, but I managed. It’s interesting how I decided to do this – it was the millennium, and I was in Paris on a rooftop with a group of fabulously fun people, most of whom I did not know, but who were very engaging. The hosts were a lesbian couple, and both of them had exes present. In fact, one of their exes had just cooked everyone an incredible dinner, and both of them seemed to be enjoying the event immensely. It was like a huge extended family with lots of loving support and acceptance. That was an eye-opener for me, and it started a year of transformation that culminated in my deciding to have a child on my own.

To raise a child as a single working parent, you really have to believe that it takes a village – and that the village will be there when you need it. And, you have to learn to ask for the help you need. Women are trained not to ask for help or accommodation; it’s seen as an expression of weakness that you can’t do it all alone. Having children forces you to re-align your priorities.

I bring my daughter to some of my non-profit board committee meetings that I attend at Creativity Explored in the Mission. She’s OK with it, even though she’s only 9. It’s better than getting a sitter, and she gets to see how a real non-profit world operates. She understands what it’s like to give back through a volunteer organization. Additionally, she enjoys visiting with the artists in our studio, who do extraordinary work in expressing their views of the world.

How would you advise women architects to invest in their own careers?

Follow your passion, and don’t assume there’s only one right way to do, or think about, architecture. Whether you practice architecture, interiors or something that incorporates an even broader bandwidth, do it with gusto. Asking a textile what it wants to be is just as valid as asking a brick, to paraphrase Louis Kahn. Gensler has built a global practice around interior design, with over 3,000 employees. As a model of assertiveness and conviction, it’s worth serious consideration. Traditional architecture often concerns itself with form and object-making, while interior design focuses on human experience and intimacy. People intuitively understand how interior space affects their lives, while large-scale architecture in the public realm is a much more abstract idea.

I really felt a strong need to incorporate more of how people experience buildings into the design process. The history of architecture celebrates the heroism of designing significant objects, which has appealed more to men than to women. Women aren’t known for designing skyscrapers or really big buildings. However, there are a few notable exceptions, including Zaha Hadid, whose personality and talent are certainly on par with those with whom she generally competes.

Having said that, she is no Howard Roark.* One of the more immediate and ground-breaking examples in this country is Jeanne Gang. She’s a remarkable person – talented, understands construction, courageous in her aspirations, and committed.

Have you ever experienced gender discrimination?

Not a huge amount, but here’s one story that had a happy outcome. I was having a performance review at The Polshek Partnership (now Ennead) and my reviewer, a partner, said, “A lot of people have noticed that you’ve been speaking up a lot…” as if it were something bad. He added, “But they’ve also noticed that you have something to say.”

“So, what are you telling me?” I asked him.

He paused, and said, “Well… I guess it’s a good thing!” It’s a turning point, when someone goes from fighting you to being on your side. That’s the way great mentorships are formed.

We haven’t really touched upon the topic of mentorship, but it’s very important. Getting mentorship from a woman can sometimes be difficult, because they want to help you – to a point. They can feel that they worked hard to achieve where they are, or feel that their status is threatened. A good mentor is someone who can transcend this, someone who really wants you to succeed, even if they risk being exceeded themselves.

Any famous last words?

Trust your intuition. Follow your gut. And commit to following your passion!

* Howard Roark is a major character in Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead. To quote from the Wikipedia summary, “The Fountainhead’s protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision.”

This article is part of our Women in Architecture interview series, exclusive to The Architect’s Take. EB Min of Min|Day Architecture has a background in studio art as well as architecture. Min|Day’s award-winning work is characterized by an artful yet playful approach, applying advanced 3D modeling with a surprisingly natural aesthetic sense to create unique custom fabricated components.

Why did you start your own firm?

I always knew that I wanted my own design firm. For my first few years, I worked at a landscape architecture firm with Andrea Cochran and Topher Delaney. Andie now has her own landscape design firm, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, and Topher has SEAM Studio.

My career experience is unusual, because I worked for landscape architects rather than a regular architect. Working with Andie and Topher has had a huge influence on me professionally. First, it was two women in a partnership, doing design/build. Not only did they have a high dedication to design principles – but they also knew how to get things built. I didn’t think about the fact that they were women at the time, but now I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have worked with them.

Why did you partner with Jeffrey Day to form Min|Day Architecture?

Jeff and I went to school together at UC-Berkeley. We complement each other well, with a healthy respect for each other’s design sensibilities. It’s nice to have a partner to work with, to serve as a sounding board, and for editing and added support. I get more out of working with someone else. Sometimes I’ll be hesitant about an idea, and Jeff may either say that he doesn’t think it’s a good idea, or he’ll say, “Don’t give it up – we  should do that,” even when it’s something I think will be too hard to do.

Why did you go through with getting your license?

The story of my license is quite a saga, actually. It took me a very long time to get licensed – 14 years! Initially, I took most of my exams at the last moment that they were offered by hand (fill in the dots on a form) as opposed to on the computer. I took and passed all the exams at the same time except for the graphical portion. I thought I’d just take the graphics part “later”. Well, later became never!

I got really busy. I had a practice, and since Jeff was licensed, it seemed less urgent. Then, the clock ran out. If you don’t pass all the exams within a specified period of time, you have to start all over again. I’d run in, take it, fail – but it would keep the clock running. In 2010 I finally passed everything and got my license. I took the oral exam at the last point before they abandoned the orals in favor of a multiple choice format.

Even though I kept putting it off, it had always bothered me that I didn’t have my license. Jeff was licensed, and he didn’t care at all that I wasn’t, but I still felt that we weren’t on an equal footing. Getting that last thing done was a huge monkey off my back.

Other people have criticized the licensing process as well, some of them quite openly.

At one time the exam was different, and happened all at once except for the graphical portion. Then IDP happened – the Internship Development Program, which required a certain number of hours. At first, they didn’t check your reported hours other than that the reports were signed off. Now, you have to log a certain number of work hours for each design phase of a project: Schematic, Design Development, Construction, and so forth. It’s hard for people in large firms to complete all their hours requirements, because in a larger firm a single phase can last for a couple of years.

The length of time it takes to get licensed has substantially increased, no doubt about it. The number of licensed architects is falling, and I believe that the licensing process is a general discouragement. This affects men as well as women, but it’s compounded particularly for women because it’s in the same time period when they have to decide whether to start a family.

Well, the exam shouldn’t be easy, but this is bureaucratically challenging, not intellectually challenging.

There’s this “rolling clock” concept – if you don’t get your license in 5 years, you have to start all over. This makes it doubly, triply hard for women to step out – or work part-time. A lot of women never bother getting license, and then they miss their chance.

How did you get your first projects?

Andie referred me to a project, the Palo Alto Pool House, and said that I could do it either on my own or through their office. Then, they referred more projects to me – because they were landscape architects, and this was outside of their core practice.

Have you ever felt frustrated by your female colleagues?

That’s an odd question. One can be frustrated by anybody, really. I don’t have any experiences in particular to share, other than the typical working frustrations, which weren’t gender-related.

OK I’ll be more specific. Have you ever felt frustrated by women who came back from maternity leave with a sense of entitlement, but who weren’t performing up to speed?

No, I haven’t. But I’ve always worked in small practices. I’ve never worked in a larger firm where they had maternity leave, or family leave policies, or anything like that. I’m used to working with women staff, women architects, even women in construction.

Have you ever experienced discrimination?

Not overtly, no. If it’s not overt, though, it’s tough to even know if it’s happening. If someone does  something obvious like call you “sweetie” on a job site, that’s one thing. But, if you interview for a job, and everyone’s polite, but you don’t get the position, you don’t always know for sure why. But it’s possible that the expectations are not the same as for a man.

Sometimes Jeff and I will go to a meeting with new people whom we don’t know, and they’ll talk to Jeff more, or they’ll address him first. This usually changes during the course of the meeting. I still go to meetings for tenant-improvement projects, and I’ll often notice that everyone’s a guy: the leasing agent, the builder, etc.

Have you felt any sexism on a job site, from construction crews or managers?

Topher and Andie hired their own crews, so there I didn’t feel marginalized. A little more so on the East Coast, perhaps. But residential contractors are getting more used to working with women. However, I have never yet seen a female site supervisor. It seems that as you travel up the food chain, and look at managerial positions, there are fewer women in those positions, no matter what field you’re in. Obvious sexism is not as endemic as it was 30 years ago. People now understand that it is not appropriate. But, women are still not in leadership positions.

Why is that? Are they being subtly passed over, or are they opting out?

I’m seeing this from the outside as it were, because I’m not in one of these larger firm myself. I think there’s some passing over, and then some women are self-selecting out. And a lot of this is tied to having a family. It’s the same in law or engineering.

For women, the decision whether to have a family comes right at the time when they are working to grow in their careers. In skilled professions, people who go through school and get a Master’s degree, won’t be entering the workforce until their mid to late 20s. The first few years they’re getting up to speed. Then, just at the time that their career starts to take off and they start getting some real project responsibility, it’s time to leave. Men don’t have that same limitation, because they can have children at a later time in their lives. Women have to make that decision before their peak childbearing years are over.

Stepping out for a few years to start a family is difficult, and stepping back in is even harder, especially for women. Having a child changes your priorities. Sometimes firms don’t want to take them back, or the women can’t work the same long hours as they used to. This is a very difficult topic to talk about, really.

Child-bearing is more physically taxing for women, because it’s their own body.

Biologically, it’s never completely  fair. Women are more involved in childbearing, with nursing and physical recovery. It’s physically more demanding for them, and hormonally crazy as well. Things are turned upside down. Three months’ leave is just not enough. Women feel pressure to come back and perform at the same level as before. Men don’t feel that same pressure.

We talked about this at the Architect Barbie panel at the AIA San Francisco offices this past Fall. At one point, we asked the audience how many of them planned to have kids, and 80% of them raised their hand. Then we asked them, “How many of you are afraid about this?” and nearly ALL of them raised their hand.

I have a three-year-old and I have my own practice, and there have certainly been challenges. I can’t work as much as I used to, just can’t work as many hours in the day. Before, I worked every day, including weekends, both at home and in the office. I can’t really do that now. I come a little later, leave a little earlier. The first year after having a child was especially challenging time-wise. It took a lot of mental energy. I’m not the most organized person, either.

I also delayed having a child until I was 40. Fortunately, I have a very supportive husband who can stay home more often and help with child care. In a more traditional arrangement, it’s the mother who ends up staying home, while the father works longer and later hours – because he’s the sole breadwinner. Really, someone more versed in feminist theory should address this one. My opinion is that women shouldn’t make it just a feminist issue. It’s a broader conversation that affects everyone, including men. If you make it into a “women’s problem” it becomes marginalized.

My brother took care of my newborn nephew full-time while my sister-in-law went through her surgical residency training.

People from my generation and younger are more open to stay-at-home dads. Companies now offer paternity leave as well as maternity. Still, why do women still pay a higher price? For this interview series, you should get some men involved in this conversation, and women from larger firms as well. And remember, you are speaking to women who are the exception: Anne Fougeron, Karin Payson, and the others have all managed to carve out their own way, by having their own firm. But not everyone wants their own firm.

There are lots of women who want to work on big projects, big things. To really do that, you need to be a partner in a big firm. You should talk to women who’ve managed to do that. Those of us who have our own firms have in a sense created our own world, our own domain. We don’t have to work with people we don’t like. We are removed from that corporate pressure.

How would you advise women architects to invest in their careers?

Have a sense of what you want, what you’d like to achieve, and what type of practice you’d like to be in. Have some sort of picture in mind. It doesn’t have to be super detailed, just have some idea. As far as gender bias goes, nothing will change unless women stay in the field until some of them rise to fill leadership positions. So many women are opting out. We need women in high positions to set policy and who are sympathetic to women’s situations.

It’s been suggested that the women who do rise to the top are not necessarily sympathetic.

There could be some truth to that, especially in the generations before mine. I’m kind of a Generation X-er. Before my time, a lot of women in the top positions didn’t have kids. The were very focused on what they wanted to accomplish. But the bottom line is, if you want to change things, you have to stay in the game. If you drop out and talk from the sidelines, people won’t take you as seriously. It’s easier to be marginalized as a woman than as a man. And if you’re already sidelining yourself, it only makes things worse. We sure didn’t talk about this in school – how to navigate our careers, and make career decisions.

Women have a perception problem, in how other people perceive them. Women over a certain age are more likely to be seen as “old” – more so than men. It’s even more important for women to stay engaged. They can’t disappear.

Other people have spoken about the importance of mentors.

I had some very important mentors who helped me in my career, and still do. There needs to be more mentorship. Not just for women, but maybe women need it even more. Someone to give advice, explain things, act as a sounding board for solving problems and sharing stories.

Having a good mentor is very important. In most professions, people have a mentor of some kind, to foster their career. In school, you have access to advisors, guidance counselors. Those relationships are very important after school as well. You need someone who understands your industry, and who has faced the same problems as you are facing now.

The AIA now has a mentorship program. I can’t stress enough how important it is to be able to turn to someone for advice. Sometimes it should be someone outside of your own firm, too. At the AIA-San Francisco, where I am currently a Board member, we were considering having a more formal mentoring program for women, an informal meeting once a month or once a quarter.

Tell me more about the Barbie panel. I’m sorry to have missed that discussion!

It was myself, Anne Torney, Ila Berman, and Cathy Simon. The idea for this panel discussion came from a blog post “What I Learned From Architect Barbie,” and it was moderated by Jessica Lane, the original author of the blog post. One thing that came out of the discussion was that the older generation of women had problems with the idea of making a Barbie doll into an architect. They were horrified at the idea. I wasn’t horrified at all. I think for Generation X and Y folks, the thought was, why not?

The original post had a big discussion of what Architect Barbie would wear, and how it had to be cute but also practical, and not too distracting.

I agree. Why do women have to curb their femininity in order to practice? Clothing should be appropriate to the job, but women should still be able to express themselves a little. For example, high heels may be inappropriate on a construction site, but a hot pink hard hat – why not?

But some of it goes beyond attire. It has to do with how we as women present ourselves.

I still see gender differences in how men and women present their own work. Men tend to over-value their work, while women under-value theirs. It’s so engrained in women that it’s hard to rectify. We should have a workshop for women on how we present ourselves and to see more clearly how we undermine ourselves through basic mannerisms – deferential body language, too many apologies – all that stuff. Women are so cognizant of body language and social cues, but we don’t see how we ourselves are using it.

This brings us back to mentorship, because in addition to advice, a mentor can be a model of behavior. I could watch Andie and Topher to see how they talked to people, how they spoke to clients and contractors. They did some custom, highly creative designs – how did they manage to get their way? Even the wording to use can be important, and a mentor can coach you on how to speak. Don’t be whiny or complaining, for example. It may seem obvious after the fact but it still helps to have someone show the way.

Any famous last words?

In addition to talking with a few corporate women, I’d suggest talking to some younger women. Ask how they perceive their own potential career choices, how they see the playing field. They might have a different perspective.

This article is part of our Women in Architecture interview series, exclusive to The Architect’s Take. After beginning her architecture career in New York, Karin Payson of KPA+D has been running her own San Francisco firm since 1992, creating custom residential designs with a disciplined yet warm contemporary style. You can also read her exclusive interview on The Architect’s Take, where she speaks out about her design philosophy and her experiences within the architectural profession.

Why did you start your own firm?

That’s a very fundamental question. It’s the right question to start with, because it leads straight into a broader dialogue about womens’ experiences in architecture. I started my own firm for two reasons. First of all, there was no room for me with the boys. And when I came here to San Francisco from New York in the early 90s, that’s exactly what it was. Second, when I was young, I was a rebellious soul. My dream was to be an artist, and my mission in life was to have the freedom to own my own work, control my own schedule, and protect my creative energy. Not my intellectual property – my energy.

When I graduated from architecture school, I worked at HHPA (Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates). They broke up about 8 years ago when the partners retired; prior to that, they were a very prominent firm based in New York City. I was successful there partly because I had a different set of goals, and partly because I wasn’t competing for the associate or partner track. I was able to build up a strong portfolio there.

I came to California at age 32 looking for freedom. I worked for an architect who was just starting up a successful practice. I could teach, work for him, and be an integral part of his business – or so I thought. He liked my portfolio, but he couldn’t accept that level of ambition in a woman. When I went to other firms, I didn’t see women as drafters – only as word processors and secretaries. I was shocked! In New York City, there were more women architects than in San Francisco. The women architects in New York City didn’t get the same level of pay as the men, but they did get the same level of responsibility and respect. Not so in San Francisco!

Here, there was literally nowhere for me to go but out on my own. My female colleagues who were my friends all felt the same way. They felt like there was no place for them here. Discrimination has a different face than it used to. It’s a lot less overt. Legally the door is open – but in actual fact, it’s not. Socially it’s not. All my employees right now are women. It’s weird… I’m both proud of it and worried about it. But when I asked a job candidate how she would feel about working in an all-female office, her face totally lit up.

A similar thing was happening in the art world as well. In 1985, the Guerrilla Girls began actively pushing to get women artists into the high-art world in New York City. Women were completely shut out. Even Mary Boone, a top art dealer at that time, was quoted as saying “I would represent women if any of them were any good.” Unbelievable!

So what does freedom mean, exactly? In my experience, most people don’t really WANT to be free.

At age 15, I already knew that I wanted freedom. I had a vision of myself owning my life, having control over my time, and living an authentic life. That was my rebellion.

How did you get your first projects for your new firm?

I started my firm in 1992, and my first projects came from Paul Wiseman, who is now one of the very top interior designers. I had met Paul socially, through a friend of mine who was drafting for Paul. At that time, I was working for Richard Brayton. This work from Paul was a small job, and really I just helped him out.

Two years later, I split from Richard. I was working on a church in San Geronimo with another architect who essentially handed it off to me. Then, Paul Wiseman referred me again for a couple of other projects. The first was a client of his in Los Altos Hills who needed a major home remodel. Shortly after that, Paul introduced me to his brother who lives in the Delta region of the Sacramento River. I designed an entirely new home for him. So, during my first few years on my own, I worked on these two projects. At the same time, I was teaching at UC-Berkeley and CCA.

I really had no idea about how to get new work. I called a handful of people that I knew, and put out the word. That’s my method even now: put a lot of irons out there and hope that something comes up. Now, work is just starting to come in from new sources. Two projects came through the same owner’s rep. Another client was introduced through a personal friend – I kept in contact with that person for three years before he became a client. Yet another client came through my business partners in an investment project, and we have one client who was referred to me by her own father.

That last story is worth telling. This client’s father was a developer of high-end production houses, and he had been referred to me by a colleague. He was used to working with commercial architects, and he pushed back hard when it came to fee. He’d say, “They’re charging half what you charge,” and I’d respond by saying that that I wasn’t competing with them. I offered to scope down the work – no, he wanted full services. Then I offered a discount on my hourly rate, but I couldn’t go down much on the total fee because it just wouldn’t have been enough to cover the work that was needed. He wouldn’t accept this, and so we did not end up working together on his project.

But, a year later, I got an email from the referring colleague, who had forwarded an email from this developer, saying that now his daughter needed an architect. So, somehow, even though he wouldn’t work with me himself, he thought highly enough of me to recommend me to his own daughter.

Sounds like you gained his respect by sticking to your guns.

If you charge a lot, they go away, but if you charge too little, they don’t respect you. It’s the law of the schoolyard. If you have low self-esteem, you’ll just get picked on.

Why did you choose to go for your license?

To me, that’s an unbelievably absurd question. One might as well ask someone why they bothered to go all the way through school to finish a degree. Everyone I went to school with got licensed, although they’re not all in architecture today. It was just what you did to follow through on your education. It was about finishing what you started.

Back then it was easier to get licensed than it is now – not because the test itself was any easier, but because it was all given at one time, not spread out over an indefinite period of time the way it is now. As people graduated, everyone took the test at the same time during 4 consecutive days in June. It was more collegial. Everyone would study together, then you’d take the test together with all your friends. It was just like school. And whatever parts you didn’t pass, you’d take again the following year. It was more a continuous part of the education process. The progression was: grad school, three years working, take the test – and you’re done.

Nowadays, licensing is much more drawn-out. People are more isolated. It’s harder to get it done, because the test is taken in pieces over a longer period of time. This fragmentation makes it much more difficult to complete the process. Life gets in the way. The way the exam is done now, I think it devalues the profession.

Still, the question of getting licensed is a completely separate one from whether people are leaving the profession. I went to a 20-year reunion and almost none of the women were still practicing architecture. And, only a few of the men were. It’s not just women who are leaving, although they still leave in greater numbers proportionally than men do.

The deeper truth is that fewer women stick with the profession and become really serious about the work. Many do interior design instead. I’ve heard people say that the reason is they’re afraid of being sued if they get licensed. They can be sued anyway, whether they have insurance or not. And if you’re not licensed, you can’t even get insurance.

So why are fewer women sticking with the profession?

As I said earlier, the formal barriers are gone, but the obstacles remain. It’s still largely a male-oriented, male-dominated profession. There are few women practicing independently who aren’t married to other architects. One dissuasion is the pay. Unless you’re a principal in a successful firm, or in private practice, you won’t make much. As an employee, it’s very hard, because pay scales tend to be low in relation to the education level required. A long-ago female colleague of mine, an Israeli woman who went to the Technion – a top university – joked that “Architecture will eventually become a woman’s profession because the pay is so bad.”

How can women balance children and work in architecture?

One of my female employees has 2 young kids at home and has still continued to work. It was very important to me to support her in this. She went to working part-time, and currently works 30 hours a week. She took two long maternity leaves, the first one longer than the second. I think she came back to work the second time sooner than I had work for her – but I’ve pushed her hard to stick with the profession.

Is it true that women who have kids sometimes can’t perform at their old level? Is it ONLY the women that this happens to?

My experience has been that women get pregnant and then they disappear. With men, it’s a different story. Men are more likely to want MY job. Young men who work for a woman – they think that their work for me isn’t important, that it’s somehow not “real work”. With the new mother in my office, we have a strong relationship. I saved a project for her – the CA phase of a library – on the condition that she return in time for the start of construction. She has been very diligent and committed.

How was she able to maintain her professional life as a new mom?

It was her upbringing, I think. She had supportive parents, in particular a very supportive mother. When she was 8 years old, her mother wanted to go to graduate school. Her father actually left his business in Colombia for three years while her mother went to grad school in New York for economics. They all came here with no English and stayed until her mother got her Master’s degree. I traveled to Colombia to be at her wedding, where her mom said to me, “Don’t worry – when my daughter has a child, I WILL SEND A NANNY. My daughter has a profession, and she must keep it up, so that her husband will continue to admire her.”

Have you ever been frustrated by your female colleagues? Are they dropping out because they just don’t want to work as hard?

Yes, I have been frustrated, but not in the way that you ask. What frustrates me is a personal sense of exceptionalism – women who identify too strongly with the fact that they’re in a male-dominated profession, and then use that as a way to be “special”. What I mean by that is they don’t want other women around. They want to be the only top female – not just the alpha female, but the ONLY female.

The difference with men is that alpha males don’t use women to make themselves more powerful in the workplace. It’s true that to get to the top in any workplace, you have to be aggressive, driven, and forceful. And the plain truth is that women can’t be as open about it as men can. Women have to be more charming, more coquettish. It’s not about the sex, it’s more about coyness. They can’t exhibit the same behaviors and get away with it. The saying goes that “Nobody likes a strong woman.”

We’ve been talking about the work sphere. Is it any different in the social sphere?

That hasn’t been an issue for me. When I was younger, most of my close personal friends were males. Now, I have many more women than men friends in my personal network. I still have a lot of male friends, too. But I’m finding women to be more interesting. Being married is helpful. When I first got married while working at HHPA, men at work who hadn’t talked to me much started coming up to me and opening up, sharing more – I was “safe” now.

Being married makes it easier to reach out socially to men. It also makes it easier to include their wives or partners in any social overture. There was one man I wanted to know better, but then I realized that I found his wife even more interesting. So I invited them over to my home for brunch. My husband was there too, and we all had a wonderful time.

Do you have any personal stories of discrimination that you faced?

Here’s one. I was at a party in around 2006, I don’t remember where. A man of my own generation was asking me about what I do, so I was telling him how I had my own firm, we do this and we do that. And he asked me, in a mocking tone, “Who’s ‘we’?” – as if I couldn’t possibly have my own firm with other people actually working for me. I responded by explaining that I had 6 employees, including a full-time office manager, 4 designers, and a freelancer. I didn’t lash out at him; I just told him the facts.

But most of the discrimination actually came from my own parents. On the one hand, they encouraged me to be myself. But then they were also saying, “No! You can’t go there” meaning, “We were hoping you’d go to school to be interesting and marriageable.” I was taught to be self-reliant in the event that my marriage didn’t work out, not to seek independence for its own sake.

I was raised with lower expectations than my brother. He was, of course, seen by my parents as more talented, brilliant, etc. He could do anything he wanted. My parents wanted me to go to school to marry a lawyer, as two of my aunts had done. While one aunt went to school for the sake of the education, then later met a man who became a lawyer (who then changed careers), another aunt told me the story of how she had hopped from college to college looking for a husband. She went to Sycracuse, “but there was nobody there.” So she attended graduate school at Columbia University, but there was nobody there, either, so she switched to law, at another university, and met my uncle.  Had I followed that path, my parents would have been pleased.

How would you advise women architects to invest in their careers?

Seek out women architects who are 100% committed to their careers. Mentorship is key. I’ve had a lot of male mentors, and they were wonderful, but that’s not enough. Women also need a mentor who is someone like them – that’s when you know it’s doable. Someone who’s facing the same challenges: life cycles, hormones, self-esteem issues, hidden workplace discrimination.

Susana Torre was one of my mentors. She was active in the profession early on – and she wasn’t married to an architect. She was quite a presence in the architectural scene in the 1970s and 80s, and I sought her out as both a professor and a mentor. Susana remains a significant influence on my sense of the possible.

More recently Barbara Scavullo, a prominent San Francisco interior designer, has been a model for me of a woman who has successfully built and maintained a substantial design practice. Both women have given me invaluable guidance and support over the years just by making themselves available for chit-chat, friendship, advice and gossip. I continue to look at their accomplishments as an inspiration. You are never too old to gain strength and knowledge from those who came before. However, at a certain point we also have to mentor those coming up behind us; and that can be our greatest accomplishment.

This article is part of our Women in Architecture interview series, exclusive to The Architect’s Take. Kate and her partner Vera at Arterra LLP work with residential architects to create custom landscape architecture throughout Northern California. You can read our exclusive interview with Arterra at on The Architect’s Take, as well as a feature on Arterra’s living roofs on our sister blog, Green Compliance Plus.

Why did you start your own firm?

At that time, 20 years ago, I was working for a large planning and design firm. I was one of 6 women in a company of 130. It was a fantastic experience working on international projects with an incredible in-house team of landscape architects and consultants. Typical to the time, there were no structures in place for family planning or work/life balance, for either male or female employees. If you got off the partner track for any reason, it had an impact on your advancement. There were no female role models in that firm. We were on the edge of the gender frontier, and they were looking to us to help define that. So, we had to learn how to seek out mentorship amongst our team members,  both male and female, and create a new kind of supportive environment for all.

When the time came for me to start a family, I determined that the best way for me to have the work/life balance that I needed was to start my own practice. At that time, many of my peers were doing the same, because we could create how we wanted to work to support this. We were able to provide good service to our clients, and our clients respected our choice to frame our business to honor both family and profession. I see that the old corporate structure is changing now. Young people are demanding better attention to things like gender equality and work/life balance. Now, flex time, job sharing, and other job flexibility is more possible. It has less impact than it used to.

Now we are finding ourselves in the interesting time of supporting our own team members as they start their families. We have great people, and it’s important to us to keep them happy. It’s harder to manage a part-time staff than a full-time one. It takes more attention, more management overhead. We have to be smart about projects and tasks that are the best fit for each part-time employee, whether that person is male or female. We have several employees who are stay-at-home parents a couple of days a week. We have to be mindful of staffing projects with the people who are best suited for the timelines and goals of each project. On certain projects, we are willing to take a little bump in profitability, because we are crafting a work ethic and work ethos in our studio to match our own values of what’s important. But the value offsets are worth it: better staff retention, and an overall benefit to society because of better parenting and more family time.

How did you get your first projects for your new firm?

Mainly through our associations and relationships with architects and builders, and from committee work. Early on I was on the Board of Directors at Friends of the Urban Forest. A fellow Board member who was in the Telegraph Hill Dweller Association connected me with another landscape architect. Together we worked on the landscape improvements for Pioneer Park at Coit Tower along with the Association, the San Francisco Department of Parks and Recreation, and the San Francisco Department of Public Works.

Why did you choose to go for your license?

Well, you can’t stamp your drawings and get building permits or planning approvals without it. Our license grants us the right to call ourselves landscape architects and to produce construction documents which include grading, drainage, hardscapes, and landscape structures. Getting licensed and registered conveys a commitment and level of professionalism that designers don’t necessarily have – I went to university, passed the licensing exams, and now I’m recognized by my peers. Agencies and authorities also honor that license. It elevates our credibility as professionals.

Have you ever been frustrated by your female colleagues?

Yes, of course – and male colleagues as well, especially when we were first starting out in the profession. I would say that in these days, there are so many great examples of women in our field who are a total inspiration. We feel very fortunate to be included in a group of peers who are role models for how to run a successful design business. We freely share our experiences and knowledge, and we expect the same in return.

How do you deal with drops in employee performance that might result from family demands – or any other demand, for that matter?

It’s not just women that it happens to. It is a real shift in mentality, becoming a parent. You can’t control things as much. Kids get sick, the nanny cancels last minute – you have to juggle multiple priorities and schedules. It can clutter your brain clarity. The people who do best at part-time status are those who are already good at multitasking. Some people are good at multitasking, and others are not. It doesn’t have to be a fatal flaw, and it isn’t necessarily a trait based on gender.

Do you have any personal stories of discrimination that you faced?

There is one. Early in my career, I worked at a firm in Florida. They realized that they needed to bring in women and promote them in order to create a more diverse company. It was a new concept for them, and I ran into the old-school mentality from time to time, even though they were committed to make this change. I had a male colleague, about the same experience as myself, and they told me, “Of course your pay is less than his, you’re not the sole breadwinner. You and your husband have dual incomes.” And it wasn’t malicious. They just didn’t know any better. They identified with the male provider model. In a way, they thought they were doing the right thing, the responsible thing.

But as I said, things are changing. One of my employees was just at the ASLA conference, going to seminars including one on woman-owned firms. She’s 40, and I’m 50 – not that different. And she was wondering why they even had a panel about women-owned firms. This is a great example of how much better integrated gender equality is now. We’re actually very bullish and hopeful. The tide has turned!

Did you ever have to play golf to be pals with the old-boy network?

No. Actually – I’ve never been asked.

How would you advise women architects to invest in their careers?

I’d give the same advice to women and men alike:

• Be active in a professional group or association. Go for your license to differentiate yourself from the people who aren’t serious, the ones who approach it as a hobby.
• Cultivate a high level of professionalism through attending seminars, keeping current on new technologies and developments in your field, by speaking, writing, and sharing your voice. Be a resource point for others in your profession. Find a mentor and be a mentor. Develop strong business skills. If you work in a big firm, make the effort to understand the business structure and understand and plan how to grow within it.
• There is no reason in this day and age why you can’t have your own firm if you want.
• Cultivate a sense of conviction and passion for doing good work.
• Don’t let yourself be an inhibitor, and don’t use gender (or anything else) as an excuse if you’re not doing your best. If someone complained about being kept back when they weren’t giving their all, I’d tell them, “Maybe you need to sharpen your pencil.”
• It’s OK to want to work part-time. It doesn’t make you any less of a professional.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I like to keep a positive outlook. Rather than single out women as a group, we should invite and challenge everyone to participate fully in our profession. Hanging back will only hurt your career, no matter who you are. At Arterra, we work with architects both male and female, and our relationships with all of them are excellent. I’m very optimistic about where things are headed in terms of gender equality – the profession has greatly improved in this regard.

This article is part of our Women in Architecture interview series, exclusive to The Architect’s Take. Anne Fougeron, FAIA of Fougeron Architecture has a unique and decidedly Modernist vocabulary, and has created numerous award-winning public and private sector projects. Her outspoken and fearless candor has been featured on The Architect’s Take in a prior interview as well.

Why did you start your own firm?

It was by accident, really. Over the course of 5 years, I had worked for 3 different architectural firms. The atmosphere was great, but I wasn’t inspired by the projects we were doing. Then, I worked for the San Jose Redevelopment Agency and that lasted for less than a year.  It definitely wasn’t my calling to be a bureaucrat! There was really no one else in San Francisco that I wanted to work for. The city had won me over and I knew that wanted to stay in the area.

Maybe I was at first a freelancer. I got some little jobs my way, and that was how it started. It was spontaneous, which may contradict what I said elsewhere; I didn’t think it through in a deliberate way, as in “I want my independence,” or “I want to make my own hours,” nothing really like that. I was a Modernist and there were really just a few architects doing modern work in the mid-80’s in the Bay Area.

Perhaps not the best small business model nowadays, but this was the ’80s. At that time, lots of people were doing their own thing and I knew that wanted to do my own designs. I’d worked in other offices, so I thought I understood how small businesses operated. It turned out that I didn’t really, but I learned soon enough.

Why did you choose to go for your license?

Well, it wasn’t ever a question for me because I wanted to legitimize my practice. Sure, you can defer it and have someone else stamp your drawings, but you’ll only be able to take on small-scale projects. If you’re going to have your own firm, and do big projects, you HAVE to have a license.

But it did take me quite a while to get my license. I’m not the greatest of test takers. I got my masters from UC-Berkeley in 1980 and I didn’t get my license until 1988. Getting licensed in California wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. The exams were a complicated, multi-part series of tests, which kept changing. I’d pass one part, like Architectural History (my favorite subject) and then that part would get eliminated in later versions of the test. But then there was the Design Exam where you had to design your own building in 12 hours, and at that time it was hand drawing, without CAD (what’s CAD?). It was hard to get it done in the allotted time. You were stressed. Your hand cramped. Your ideas got jumbled.

Then, once you passed all the written stuff, there was the oral exam. You sat at a table in a room with 4 architects, all of them asking you questions you’ve never heard of before. It was intimidating. And the tests weren’t offered all that often. I guess that doesn’t excuse me from the time in ’85 when I just didn’t show up to my tests!

How did you get your first projects?

They were just small projects. I don’t even remember now because I was young and desperate (or maybe eager?). It was bathroom remodels, kitchen remodels, decks, that sort of thing. I only remember one building I helped design, it was a disaster – and I made the mistake of pointing it out to my daughter. She prints out a copy of the image every time I win an award. I was naive about what it took to run my own business, too.

Have you ever been frustrated by your female colleagues? This includes employees.

That’s a complicated topic and I am not sure I can adequately answer the question in just a few minutes. I think it all goes back to women’s place in architecture – both how society treats them as architects, and how women see their own place as architects.

I think that women have to work harder than men do in order to succeed [in architecture]. So women already have to bend themselves to accommodate a male workforce [a male- dominated or male-majority work environment]. It leads to more dissatisfaction with your own work, you don’t feel respected but more importantly, you don’t feel challenged. And I think ultimately it leads to some women feeling less engaged with their careers. And that doesn’t even begin to cover the struggles you, as a female architect, have with your personal life.

What frustrated me the most was how some women would assume that once they had a kid, their work environment would change. You have a child at home but you have to be present when you come into work. You’re a mother and an architect, not a mother who is an architect. If someone needs some flexibility because of family duties – yes, that’s fine. But when you’re at work, you have to be fully engaged and focused on what you’re doing. It’s a fine line to draw, between flexibility and distraction. As a business owner it is important for me to be fair to everyone. I always assume that men and women can and should do the same work. No one gets preferential treatment.

I’m lucky to have been successful in such a tough business, regardless of my gender. But people still ask me if I was ever married, and assumed that if I wasn’t, it was because I was a career architect. The assumption is that you can either have a firm and then you’re a workhorse with no time for family life, or you can have a reasonable life as a stay-at-home mom, but then you can’t have a real career.

For example, in the Architect’s Journal study about women in architecture, there was a woman who commented that Zaha Hadid’s success has resulted in her having no family life. My first reaction was “Who cares? And how is that relevant to her body of work as an architect?” Why is a family life something a successful woman has to give up? It might have never been on Zaha’s radar. How presumptuous it is for anyone to assume that Zaha is not perfectly happy with the choices she has made, both professionally and personally. Besides, just because you aren’t married doesn’t mean you are relegated to a life of spinsterhood. I remember the late 80s when that study came out saying that women over 35 were more likely to be abducted by terrorists than to get married.

Zaha could have had 7 lovers, one for every day of the week for all we know!

We – and women particularly – should all be proud of Zaha. She is a resounding success and an extraordinary architect. And frankly, I don’t hear the same criticism being applied to Rem Koolhaas. A few years ago, I remember a piece on him in the New York Times. And they were just flippantly describing his two families – one with his wife and the other with his mistress. I mean, he clearly had enough time on his hands. He had it all, and then some.

Women have a harder time than men in architecture, plain and simple. And it gets discouraging. You can get beaten down. It can be easier to find something else to do instead. I was a single mom at the same time that I had a firm, and it wasn’t easy. I didn’t have a life partner to support me; I had to work. I had some more flexibility, because it was my own firm, so I could incorporate my daughter into my work schedule. She would come to the office after school and it was fine. Or I didn’t have to ask permission to go to parent-teacher conferences. But I was the boss, and even when I could leave for an hour on a Wednesday to see her play basketball, I still had to land new jobs, make payroll, attend meetings, serve on architectural juries, and pay the rent.

You can’t say, “Here’s what I CAN’T do,” as if the world is going to cut you slack over it. After my kid was in bed, I’d come back down and work late in the evenings or I’d work through the weekend. You make it work.

Can people work part-time successfully?

You can’t really be part-time in a service-oriented industry with a product at the end – not for too long. I think that you could, perhaps, be seasonal? Projects have a life of their own. You can’t check out at 3pm or not respond to a client’s email for three days, whether you’re male or female. I think other types of jobs can be half-time and people can be successful if there’s less day-to-day project management, but that’s just not the case in architecture.

Do you have any discrimination stories to share?

Some of them are funny – I still go on job sites and get greeted with “Hi honey, are you the interiors person?”

I think what is grating is the subtle discrimination or disrespect, and oftentimes people don’t even realize they’re doing it. Early on, I had a business partner, Louis Schump. We’d go to meetings together. And people just didn’t pay attention to me as much. People would automatically defer to him, especially on matters of construction. I don’t even think Louis owned a toolbox at the time. This kind of subliminal bias is more of a problem than blatant discrimination, because it’s more difficult to deal with. People just didn’t see me the same.

What can you do about it?

Sometimes if it’s really blatant, you just have to say something. You may be speaking with a client, but why am I building you a house if you can’t look me in the eye? But mostly you find that you just have to ignore it. You just have to plow through. In the end, I think it affects them more negatively than it does me.

Does that still happen to you, even now? This passing over, I mean.

Yes, it does. And it’s still harder for women to own firms and get project work. If you’re a man and you’re opinionated, maybe even hot-tempered, you’re a genius, like Frank Lloyd Wright. Being opinionated is seen as being part of the job for the male architect. It means you have a creative soul and drive. But if I insist on a design idea, I get less of the “you are such a genius” and more of “you are so difficult.”

How would you advise women architects to invest in their careers?

Here are the questions you have to ask yourself: Where do I want my career to be in 10 years? What kind of work do I want to be doing? How serious are am I? What I really want? Is a career going to be an important measure of who I am? It doesn’t have to be the only measure, and it’s OK if you don’t want a career, too. But, have a game plan. Make it explicit. Express it and stick to it. Don’t give up on it halfway through.

Women nowadays may find partners who are more willing to share in the work [of child care and homemaking]. I have friends who stopped working when they got married. They gave up their careers because the men were earning more than they were and it seemed to make sense at the time. But now they’re divorced and they’re wondering how to make ends meet. And these women aren’t incompetent or lazy. They’ve got college degrees and years of experience but their resumé stops at 1999. They checked out and you can’t jump back into a workforce if you’ve been out of it for a decade.

Maybe the option of not working doesn’t exist anymore. And maybe there are times where the woman’s career can take precedence. I hate to defer to clichés, but compromise is key and it should be a 2-way street. Good partners can stay home with the kids more, be more a part of their lives while a woman goes to work. I think what it all comes down to is you have to be willing to forge your own identity and not tie it to motherhood or architecture. You have to be driven at being the most productive and ingenious version of yourself.

San Francisco-based architects Anne Fougeron, Kate Stickley, Karin Payson, EB Min, and Amy Eliot

We all know the diatribes about gender inequality within skilled professions: barriers to entry, salary disparities, glass ceilings, mommy tracks, old-boy networks, differences in socialization, and more. We hear how “feminine” strengths such as empathy work against women in male-dominated fields where confrontation and open struggles for dominance are the only acceptable ways to succeed. We hear about the few women who do break the glass ceiling, and how they often act vigorously to defend their privileged status as the “token” woman executive. Well, how much truth is there to all this, specifically within the architectural profession?

Architecture certainly has its disparities: while close to half of architecture graduates are women, only 20% of licensed architects are women. [1] Not only are women dropping from the profession in droves, so it seems, but they’re not even going for their license. Well, why the hell not? Is discrimination the only cause?

Defining the problem

When we started discussing this amongst our own circle of peers at our monthly Small Firms Committee meetings [2], some surprising things came out: opinions amongst the women themselves that discrimination might not be the only problem. Our group is mainly principals of small firms, both design and construction, specializing in mostly residential work. Our small-firm experiences may represent an important perspective: while corporate architects account for the majority of staff hires and total billings, 90% of architectural firms are under 20 people. [3]

Not only that – but a brand-new women in architecture survey by the Architecture Journal, a British publication, points to widespread perceived discrimination: “47 per cent of women claim that men get paid more for the same work, and almost two-thirds believe the building industry has yet to accept the authority of the female architect.” [4]

I think this article is a good teaching case on how anecdotal wisdom can snowball into an urban legend until some skeptical debunker actually picks it apart and starts examining the claims one by one. We asked ourselves whether women were really being driven from the field, and what we could do about it. We approached some firm principals who are women, starting with our own Small Firms Committee, and started with the same set of questions:

• Why did you start your own firm?
• Why did you go through with getting licensed?
• How did you get your first projects?
• Have you ever been frustrated by your female colleagues?
• Do you have any stories of discrimination that you or someone you know experienced?
• How would you advise women architects to invest in their career?

The interviews themselves don’t necessarily follow this format, because the conversations took some very different turns, and we wanted the interviewees to tell the story in their own words. If you want read the actual interviews, they are, in order: Anne Fougeron, Kate Stickley, Karin Payson, EB Min, and Amy Eliot.

Women architects who were interviewed

Anne Fougeron, FAIA of Fougeron Architecture. Anne  is the sole principal of her own firm, based in San Francisco. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architectural History at Wellesley College and a Master’s Degree in Architecture at UC-Berkeley, Anne worked with San Francisco architect and urban designer Daniel Solomon, and then went on to found Fougeron Architecture in 1986. She developed her own unique and decidedly Modernist vocabulary, and quickly gained recognition for numerous award-winning public and private sector projects. Anne has taught architectural design at CCA and at UC-Berkeley, where she also served as the Howard Friedman Visiting Professor of Professional Practice in 2003-4.

Past features on The Architect’s Take: Anne was very outspoken in our first feature interview, and had some very interesting ideas about cities of the future in a follow-up feature as well.

Kate Stickley, ASLA of Arterra LLP landscape architects. After practicing large-scale resort design in Florida and the Caribbean, Kate lived and worked for four years in the South of France, where she developed her love of Mediterranean plants and water-wise planting. Designing and collaborating with local artisans in the Old World laid the foundation for her comprehensive knowledge of how things are built. Kate founded Arterra with her business partner Vera Gates in 2003. She continues to draw from her early foundation today, as innovative detailing and design are hallmarks of Arterra Landscape Architects. Kate is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Build It Green and the National Association for Women Business Owners. She is a Certified Green Building Professional. She earned her Bachelor’s in Landscape Architecture from Michigan State University in 1984.

Past features on The Architect’s Take: We’ve featured Arterra on both our blogs: a designer interview with Kate and her business partner Vera Gates and a feature on Arterra’s living roofs for our sister blog, Green Compliance Plus.

Karin Payson, AIA of KPA+D. Before founding KPa+d in 1992, Karin’s professional experience included several years in the New York office of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates where, as a Project Architect, her work focused on the planning, programming and design of large-scale commercial buildings and adaptive re-use of historically significant buildings. Karin holds degrees from Columbia University and UC Berkeley, and is a licensed architect in California and New York. Her work has appeared in several exhibitions and publications, including California Homes; Science & Spirit; Architectural Digest; San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine; Sunset Magazine; The Sacramento Bee; The San Francisco Examiner Sunday Magazine; and The New York Times.

Past features on The Architect’s Take: In our two-part feature interview with Karin, she spoke very openly about the challenges faced by women in architecture.

E.B. Min, AIA of Min|Day Architecture. E.B. Min is the San Francisco principal of Min|Day, which also maintains offices in Omaha, Nebraska. An honors graduate of Brown University with dual concentrations in Art History and Studio Art, she began her architectural studies as a cross-registered student at Rhode Island School of Design. She received her Master of Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley in 1993. E.B.’s experience in the landscape architecture office of Delaney and Cochran nurtured her interest in the integration of landscapes and buildings. E.B. has taught at U.C. Berkeley and is an Adjunct Professor in the Masters of Architecture Program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and serves on the Board of Directors of the AIA San Francisco.

Past features on The Architect’s Take: Min|Day was our inaugural feature. We did a follow-up profile of her business partner Jeffrey Day as well.

Amy Eliot, AIA of Tom Eliot Fisch. With 20 employees and three partners, Tom Eliot Fisch is slightly larger and more complex than the other firms. Amy also has a broad perspective on working in corporate firms such as SOM, SMWM, The Polshek Partnership (now known as Ennead) and Chong Partners.

She holds a BA in Art History from Smith and a Master’s in Architecture from Harvard, and is a licensed architect in California. Amy was the Chair of the Interior Architecture department at California College of the Arts from 1999-2001, and an associate professor teaching in multiple design programs there from 1992-2001. She serves on the board of two arts organizations, Creativity Explored in San Francisco, and Art Works Projects, based in Chicago, both of which advocate in very different ways the power of art and design to create powerful change, one in the lives of artists with developmental disabilities, and the other in educating international audiences about human human rights and environmental issues.

Photo Credit

Golden Gate Bridge image in composite photo is shared by Wally Gobetz on Flickr. We chose it as a major landmark to represent the City of San Francisco, where all our interviewees are based.

References and Suggestions for Further Reading

[1] “Calling All Women: Finding the Forgotten Architect“, Alexis Gregory, AIA Archiblog, November 12, 2009

[2] The AIA-San Francisco Small Firms Committee was founded in 1990 as a support and knowledge sharing forum to address the specific challenges faced by small firm practitioners and firm owners, and currently has 86 active members.

[3] “The Female Brain-Drain in Architecture“, Lira Luis AIA, blog entry on the AIA Knowledge Net, November 9, 2011

[4] “Shock survey results as the AJ launches campaign to raise women architects’ status” January 2012 study from the Architecture Journal in the U.K.

[5] “Not Only Zaha: What is it like to be a female architect with a solely owned firm in the U.S. today?“, Suzanne Stephens, Architectural Record, December, 2006

[6] “What I Learned From Architect Barbie“, Despina Stratigakos, Design Observer, June 13, 2011

[7] 2003 study sponsored by the Royal Institute of British Architects on why women are leaving the architectural profession.

[8] “Architecture Organizations for Women“, a listing from Architecture.about.com, listing women’s architecture, construction, and engineering associations within the United States.

A year ago, we published an editorial critique of some of the post-Katrina rebuilding efforts in New Orlean’s Lower 9th Ward, specifically those of the Make It Right! organization. We questioned the vanity of celebrity philanthropy: why build only a few hundred expensive LEED homes when far more homes could have been rebuilt for the same cost?

During the course of writing that piece, we came across a viewpoint even more contrarian than ours: geographer Richard Campanella of the Tulane School of Architecture. Campanella has spent the past 17 years researching New Orleans’ historical geography, authoring six books and numerous papers on the subject.  He pointed out that large portions of New Orleans are on reclaimed swampland that were probably best left undrained and undeveloped.

“If you build sustainable structures but place them in a geographically unsustainable site, have you really ‘made it right’?… I personally identified over 2000 open parcels of above-sea-level land in the heart of the New Orleans historic district. That’s where MIR should have built.” (The map shown at the top of this article indicates the above-sea-level areas in green – paradoxically, they’re the ones closest to the Mississippi River, because in a deltaic environment, rivers deposit sediment along their banks.)

Campanella had actually published a study in 2007 titled “Above-Sea-Level New Orleans: The Residential Capacity of Orleans Parish’s Higher Ground” explaining how he found these open land parcels, and evaluating how many people could be resettled there at various densities.

Geographer Richard Campanella, a professor at the Tulane School of Architecture, has identified over 2000 parcels of open land above sea level within the City of New Orleans that could be used to build safer and more sustainable new housing for people displaced by the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Image courtesy Richard Campanella.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was only one of many forces shaping change in the City over the past three centuries since it was first established, and the population had been declining from its 1960 peak of 627,000 people. Major civil engineering projects that originally enabled settlement of low-lying areas in the early 1900s were also to blame for subsequent environmental deterioration, namely the sinking of the soil by six to twelve feet below sea level and the introduction of gulf waters to within city limits. Regional navigational canals, meanwhile, accelerated the erosion of sediment-starved coastal wetlands, which allowed hurricane-induced storm surge to incur father inland and exert pressure on what proved to be under-engineered federal flood walls and levees. When those systems failed to impede Hurricane Katrina’s surge in August 2005, it was those twentieth-century below-sea-level subdivisions that suffered the deepest flooding.

How has that report been received by governing agencies and the media?

It landed on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. That article was mostly dedicated to my observation that half the city is above sea level, but my original report went much farther than that simple fact. That fact by itself didn’t have any policy impact. And for good reason – the question whether the City should move people to areas above sea level played out after Katrina as what I’ve dubbed “the great footprint debate:” should New Orleans close down those low-lying areas? That’s where the trouble started. Suggesting that some residents would not have the “right to return” to their homes proved very bitter and contentious.

Eventually authorities settled on the only thing that seemed workable: all neighborhoods would come back; no areas would be officially shut down, no matter how low-lying, far-flung, risky, or depopulated. They really had little choice. There was no pool of cash with which to compensate homeowners quickly and fairly, so flood victims naturally gravitated back to the one thing they still owned: their land and wrecked homes. The city’s ultimate resolution was simply to let people return as they wished to where they wished, and to act passively on those patterns as they fell in place. They essentially decided to not decide. For better or worse, it was a failure of urban planning, and a triumph of decentralized citizen-level activism. This all played out in late 2005 and early 2006.

New Orleans boasts a wide variety of historical architectural styles. Both these homes are located on Freret Street, which is currently undergoing a renaissance following the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Images from recent property listings on Zillow.

My study, which I conducted after the great footprint debate played out, wouldn’t change any of that. The purpose was to point out that, by the way, we have a resource on higher ground, that we can use without closing down any other neighborhoods. I wanted to change the terms of the debate away from the negative couching of closing down below-sea-level areas, and toward the positive approach of making the absolute best use of above-sea-level areas.

A hundred years ago, New Orleans’ population was around 300,000. Today, it’s not that different -  356,000 people. The difference is, the City in the early 1900s had a much smaller footprint, and nearly all of it all above sea level. The major civil works projects that drained the low-lying swamplands hadn’t yet been undertaken. Of course, more has changed than just the topography. People today expect more living space and wouldn’t necessarily be willing to live at turn-of-the-century urban densities. Still, even with that in mind, New Orleans still has over 2,000 open lots all above sea level that people could occupy and gain a topographic advantage.

Being above sea level does not make you immune to all flooding. If you are unfortunate enough to live in a hydrological sub-basin that suffers a levee breach, you may flood even if you live above sea level. But the depth will be less, probably dramatically. Topographic elevation is an absolute good in a deltaic city. Living on higher ground is the one variable you can control. You cannot control the weather or the wetlands or where the levee may fail, but you can arrange your space to lay above where the water level may settle.

Could people live on those lots today if they wanted to?

In my research, I was looking for open, grassy lots or lots that were very “lightly used”. Not all of these are zoned for residential use, however. So the first thing would be to re-zone some of those parcels to make it possible for people to live on them. At the present time, these lots are ones that could, theoretically, be converted to residential land use. In the newspaper article, you’ll notice that there’s only a small-scale oblique map of these parcels. That’s by design. We didn’t want to get angry calls from landowners who thought we might be trying to take their land away from them.

So, that report is not a policy blueprint. It’s a way to gently suggest that we have a scarce and valuable natural resource here, and it may not be currently put to the best public use.  These lots are almost entirely in historic neighborhoods that were settled prior to the turn-of-the-century drainage operations; the infrastructure to support a high population density is already in place. Filling in these pockets would help to mend the urban fabric that was torn by the population exodus that has been ongoing since the 1960s. And, we can do this without marginalizing low-lying neighborhoods or shutting anyone out. No one needs to move if they don’t want to.

In 1878, New Orleans had a substantial population not that much below what it is today, all of it settled above sea level. Image courtesy of Richard Campanella, originally from "Report on the Social Statisics of Cities" published in 1886.

So this blight actually preceded Katrina?

Yes, very much so. The first exodus occurred in the early 1960s as a phenomenon of white flight following desegregation. Later waves occurred again in the 70s and early 80s, as people cited reasons including declining public schools and increasing crime. In the 1980s and 90s, the black middle class departed historic New Orleans and settled in modern suburban subdivisions in the low-lying eastern half of the metropolis, which had been dissected by navigation canals and lay proximate to eroded coasts and surge-prone gulf waters.

How could people be encouraged to settle on higher ground, then?

Any official policy to direct people to higher ground risks re-invoking the bitter conflicts of the great footprint debate. If the City Council members took it upon themselves to incent people to higher ground, it would implicitly suggest that there was something risky and wrong with lower-lying areas—and that would meet with great resistance from neighborhood associations and realtors there. Politicians are naturally sensitive to their constituents. So don’t look to local government to do the encouraging.

As for me personally, as a geographer, I’m often approached by people considering buying a house or renting an apartment, and they ask me where they should look given the hydrology and topography of the city. I’m more than happy to unfurl my topographic maps and give them a little lessen in the historical geography of the city! But policymakers couldn’t do that without inciting a civic fight. It’s illogical, but not inexplicable.

There are both financial rewards and penalties for moving to higher ground. For one thing, the flood zone determines what kind of insurance coverage you can get, with higher ground of course being better. However, real estate is often cheaper in the low-lying areas – not necessarily because they’re more flood-prone, strangely, but because they’re less historic. Again, there aren’t as many historic neighborhoods in lower areas because those areas weren’t available for building until after 1900.

If policy isn’t the answer, what can the City do?

There is a move afoot already to increase population density through zoning in historic neighborhoods—that is, to return neighborhoods such as Bywater to their pre-World War II densities. Some of the open lots I identified are currently zoned only for commercial use. By changing the zoning to mixed or residential use, government could subtly shift population to higher areas without explicitly speaking negatively about low-lying areas.

What about the private sector?

I’ve personally inspected most of these lots just by biking and walking around the City. There is already a fair amount of infill development going on in these areas. And historical secondary commercial corridors such as Freret Street, St. Claude Avenue, and Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard are enjoying notable resurgences. They do not appeal to developers because they’re topographically high; they appeal because of their historicity. And because of the historical geography of the city, “historic” means “higher ground.” The use of overlay districts has helped these corridors as well, by encouraging certain desirable land uses.

Recent signs of life in New Orleans include these scenes from the Freret Street corridor. Left image shows an image from the Thirteenth Annual Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame, shared by Positive Vibrations, an organization that sponsors art as a vehicle for community and issues fellowship grants to teen musicians. Right image is from a PBS slideshow depicting community design activist Bryan Bell building a community bus shelter. See end of this article for links to original content.

Let’s say that you are a legislator or possibly a developer with resources to do something big. If you had the power to make real changes, what would you do?

That’s a good question… it takes me out of my comfort zone as a solitudinous archival and field geographer, and into the raucous din of public discourse [laughter]. What I would really like to see will never happen – I would like to see a city that never moved into these low-lying areas in the first place.

I would see a City with its pre-1900 footprint when 95% of the population lived on higher ground, on the natural levees paralleling the Mississippi River. I would bring back those intricate and textured neighborhoods and their panoply of architectural styles reflecting the contributions of the myriad cultures, regions, and ethnicities that made up the City. I’d like to have an intimate, walkable experience that wasn’t dictated by automotive transport.

I would like for urban expansion to have occurred laterally up and down the Mississippi River, where the high ground is, rather than latitudinally toward the low ground by Lake Ponchartrain. A more snake-like shape rather than the spread-eagle shape of the conurbation we currently have. I wish those low-lying wetlands had never been drained. We could have used them to store excess rainwater, and to buffer storm surges that instead threaten neighborhoods and people.

This would take massive amounts of money and citizen concurrence, and it’s not realistic to think that we can turn the clock back no matter how much money we have.

Suppose that an existing legislator or private developer were to approach you as an advisor. How would you inform their decisionmaking?

I’d look to what’s currently in the public discourse at the neighborhood level. Local officials could encourage zoning for increased density and infill development. I wouldn’t couch it as trying to get people to live above sea level. I would look at what’s currently already working. Officials could encourage or allow individuals to build apartments in the back of their homes and rent them out.

However, I must point out that there is stiff neighborhood resistance to some of this, and their main concern is that residents won’t be able to park in front of their homes anymore. But fears are somewhat exaggerated. We’re talking about tiny, incremental density increases, not dramatic ones. And these neighborhoods are already depopulated, even since 2005. My neighborhood had 5100 people in 2005 and only 3800 people today—and it’s historic and did not flood. So there’s plenty of room to grow back. I don’t think automobile storage should drive urban planning.

So most of the neighborhood opposition is rooted in the parking issue?

There’s also a suspicion that the people promoting higher densities have ulterior motives, other than societal good. There’s a feeling that they must be involved somehow in the real estate industry, or otherwise seeking to profit at others’ expense.

Although the major civil engineering that drained the New Orleans backswamps to allow for human habitation didn't occur until 1900, another driver of geographical change was the need for shipping lanes. This 1861 map shows both elevated areas and major shipping channels. Image courtesy Richard Campanella.

Do people even want to live on top of each other the way they did in earlier times?

Building in an open lot is one way to increase density, but another way is to increase the number of people living in existing buildings. I’ll give you one example that is a rather humbling admission. My wife and I live in a 2000 square foot shotgun house that was built in 1893, and was originally a double that is now a single. At the time the house was built, the neighborhood was teeming with children. Two families of four living in our house meant eight people living above sea level. Now, with my wife and I living in that house as single dwelling, there are only 2 people in 2000 square feet of space.

It’s humbling to realize my own hypocrisy here. I should convert our house back into a double and rent out the space. But I’m not! This points to deeply rooted American social and cultural issues that are embedded within the density question, and also in the population shifts to low-lying areas. People today want more living space. We no longer live in the extended families of our great-grandparents. Children move out upon adulthood. We can’t pretend this cultural change never happened. This is somewhat counteracted by other trends, namely the rediscovery of inner cities by the same white middle class that fled them 30 or 40 years ago.

What is the architect’s role in promoting healthy change? Should architects be taking on a leadership role or should they stick with the traditional client-driven design model?

Now that I’m teaching geography at Tulane’s School of Architecture, this is a particularly pertinent question to me. The role that architects can play is to recognize that design and materials alone don’t make buildings sustainable. Location matters as well. A well-designed green building erected in an isolated rural area or in a far-flung flood-prone subdivision is not a green building, despite the great effort that went into design and materials. If it’s too remote, you lose the architectural sustainability advantage because the occupants will depend on auto transportation to get there. I think architects should consult topographical maps before they sit down at the drafting table.

Whether architects should take more of a leadership role… well, they may not have the opportunity to advise on site selection. Not if the client comes to them and already has the land selected. If the architect can get involved in the project early enough, they can play a significant role in site selection. If would give them an important opportunity to exercise geographical judgment.

What about public education campaigns to raise awareness of the availability of these open plots?

This already happens on a decentralized, ad-hoc level. Ever see those billboards saying “If you lived here, you’d be home by now”? That might encourage people to make an initial spatial decision to live closer to the inner core, which in New Orleans means living on higher ground. The more people want to make that decision, the more motivation developers will have in converting those open lots to habitable spaces.

In terms of my own effort to educate the public, I emphasize in all my lectures that New Orleans is not unconditionally “below sea level;” in fact, it’s almost precisely half above sea level—and this higher ground is a precious natural resource whose use we should prioritize for human occupancy. Recent research in sustainability suggests the value of cities and urban living. If you want to live sustainably, don’t live out in the woods off the grid. We’ve romanticized living in isolated cabins as being in environmentally benign and “in touch with nature,” but it’s an illusion.

Currier & Ives, "City of New Orleans" shows the city's development by around 1880, including settlements and a lively river traffic. Image courtesy Library of Congress, as provided by Richard Campanella.

Didn’t people realize that the land was sinking, and that the various canals were causing environmental disasters?

I should distinguish between two types of canal: municipal outfall canals, which drain runoff from the city proper, and navigation canals, which were built for shipping throughout the Louisiana coastal region. The former occasioned the sinking of urban soils; the latter occasion coastal erosion and salt-water intrusion in the rural coastal periphery of the city.

Yes, people realized the soils were sinking; that realization came for Jefferson Parish in the 1970s, when a number of houses actually exploded because foundations cracked and gas lines exploded. New codes were put in place requiring pilings beneath slabs, but that only minimizing the cracking of the slab. It does not prevent the neighborhood from sinking. Once all the drainage apparatus was installed and people invested in the new subdivisions, soil subsidence became a problem that simply had to be suffered and dealt with through more and more drainage capacity. It was too late. Urban occupancy builds momentum; prior investment in cities carries with it inertia for continued investment despite increasing risk. There’s both bad and good in this: that inertia is on the reasons why cities often prove to be so resilient. But it sometimes lays the groundwork for the next disaster.

What’s the message that you would like to convey to our readers as the most important takeaway?

It is simply this: we have a valuable and scarce resource—topographic elevation—which ought to be used to the utmost degree for residential occupancy, especially given the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. By populating these above-sea-level parcels, we gain an additional benefit in mending the tears in the historic urban fabric that have opened up since the 1960s. If you look at the satellite images of Katrina flooding, you’ll essentially see the City’s circa-1900 footprint in the unflooded areas. Without closing down any areas or displacing anyone, we can make the best use of this great resource.

References for further reading

Professor Campanella has a very large body of work on his web site, both books and perhaps several hundred articles and research papers. Of these, the most relevant resource for understanding this article would be his book Bienville’s Dilemma, which is an exhaustive examination of the population shifts, agricultural development, and natural disasters occurring throughout the City’s history. Campanella spices up the narrative with vivid first-hand historical accounts, and his writing is fearlessly incisive and direct. You’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about canals, levees, social hierarchies, and other fascinating topics!

There are also two interesting slideshows about New Orleans community rebuilding:

A PBS audio slideshow about the design and construction of a community bus shelter on Freret Street to serve as a visual and cultural anchor.

A US News and World report slideshow depicting different aspects of community renaissance, charting the efforts of residents to rebuilt Freret Street.

Part surfer, part engineer, part artist, part prophet – how else can I describe the simplicity, the evocative nature of Craig’s designs and his fearless approach? If there’s such a thing as a contemporary West Coast architecture with a clean Zen sensibility, Craig Steely might be a good exemplar. The word “avatar” doesn’t really do justice to his down-to-earth, straightforward demeanor. He and his wife both could be some glamorous Hollywood celebrity couple – at once elegant and informal – but their charisma really comes from a deep-rooted stability, a sense of health and vitality, and a freedom from inner hang-ups.

Mark English, founder of The Architect’s Take, had long been intrigued by Craig because of their shared academic background as Cal Poly undergrads. Like many top-flight schools, Cal Poly has its own mystique, a blend of artistic and engineering rigor, which leaves a stamp on its students. And, both Mark and Craig share a second passion: a reverence for the Classical architecture of Italy, particularly Florence.

The following interview took place in two parts: the first conversation between Rebecca Firestone and Craig Steely; the second part was a professional dialogue between two colleagues.

Interviewer’s comments appear in italics.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up on a farm in northern California. Very rural, we did everything for ourselves: a lot of fixing, building, making things. My Dad liked to customize everything, specialize or “improve” it to what he needed. If something broke, we put it behind the barn to save it for parts. He and I were constantly modifying tools, constantly tinkering.  The folks on my Mom’s side of the family are all very artistic. I liked to draw and they encouraged me. It was this love of drawing that drew me to architecture.

Craig Steely made a splash with his "Lava Flow" series, built in Hawai'i on actual lava beds. The first one, "Lava Flow 1", was for San Francisco designer Robert Trickey. Yes, there's always the risk of new lava rolling down someday, but apparently, it's not so imminent as to discourage either Steely or his many satisfied design clients. Photo: J.D. Peterson

If you loved to draw, why didn’t you become a fine artist?

Maybe it was the customizing part that I liked – customizing things with the goal of creating usable components. “Custom anything” was our family motto. The difference between art and architecture is that I see art as being more self-referential, whereas architecture is a conversation with other people, other collaborators.

Craig Steely's wife, fine artist Cathy Liu, painted this “custom anything” image for a joint show they had together at Mollusk Surf Shop a few years ago (please check them out at http://mollusksurfshop.com/). The original photo was from a 1970s T'ai Chi book that Craig found at a Hawai'i flea market.

Celebrations of the DIY ethos have continued, through events like Burningman [and Maker Faire]. The thing with Burningman is it teaches you about failure. You can work on an idea all year and then it blows down 5 minutes after you get there. You have to be willing to prototype, and be patient, not give up.

That’s how I feel about my own work now. It’s all one house, just done over and over. I see a connection through all of them, between one idea to the next – I’m always exploring contrasts along similar lines: opacity-transparency, heaviness-lightness, action-reaction.

[After reviewing Steely's work during the writing of this article, I felt that each idea or vocabulary element was like a musical theme, and the projects as a whole were a composition that wove each theme and counter-theme together. There'd be a theme, a development, a transition to something new - and then, later on, a return to an earlier theme but with a new aspect. - RF]

Craig Steely's progression of ideas from one "Lava Flow" house to the next is not exactly linear - more like cycling through several interwoven themes. Above photos are both "Lava Flow 2" which celebrates a lightness and translucency of material. Photos: J.D. Peterson

How do you go about approaching a new project?

I have a sketchbook of ideas that are just waiting for a project to happen. The ideas can morph to suit the circumstances, and they get refined from one project to the next.

[We drifted to some discussion of music. Craig's had some exposure to Indian music through a cousin who spent time in India studying with a music master. We compared a few notes on Indian and Middle Eastern musical theory. The life in Hawai'i seems to involve a lot of impromptu jam sessions called kanikapila. Craig learned to play bass so he could contribute to these jam sessions, since usually these gatherings didn't have a bass player. - RF]

Back to structural elements and systems. I see the design as a holistic process. The entire project team gets excited about each new design. The structural engineer really has to take the project to heart, just as much as the architect does. Everyone has to give it their best – not just protecting themselves. The last word is that everyone on the team is accountable, including the client.

Craig Steely works closely with structural engineers to make the steel framing as light as possible. In "Lava Flow 5", the framing was actually assembled in prototype fashion in San Francisco prior to being shipped to Hawai'i. Photo: Craig Steely Architecture

What makes a good client?

To me, a good client is someone who’s interested in the process. Someone who really WANTS to be involved. I demand it, actually. Someone who enjoys the process as much as the product, someone who sees it as transformative, challenging, and enjoyable. I only have good clients because I’ve set up my studio in a way that I only have to work with people that I like and respect.  Seems obvious… the point of taking only good work is that you’re more invested in it. I love what I do and don’t want to get burned out. I’m very protective of this and I don’t want bummer clients or bad jobs to bring it down.

Craig Steely's home office helps set the tone with new clients. Left photo shows his office on the second floor. Right shows the front entry, including a custom-made door with translucent inserts. The door was actually made from reclaimed surplus materials. Photos: Rien van Rijthoven

Doesn’t turning down work keep you from expanding your firm?

I’ve never thought you have to be a big firm to create meaningful work. Architects as a rule are future thinkers, but they need to stay more in the present.  I’m all about focusing on the work that I have right now. There’s a sense of grandiosity about the image of a big office for its own sake, but that doesn’t always serve. From experience, and from becoming more secure with my own abilities, I’m more in control by being less controlling. When you relinquish some control, you are free to let other people do what they’re good at. It’s not just about pulling down an hourly wage.

Clean lines of sight where the eye is guided by the alignment of striated materials is one theme that emerges over and over in Craig Steely's designs. This one is "Lava Flow 3". Photo: Cesar Rubio

Tell me more about your present office space here at Beaver Street.

When I was first starting out, I renovated this house we’re in now. It earned some good press and publicity, which got me my first commissions. But then we outgrew it. So we tore it down to the ground and started over a second time. People thought this was shocking. It had been in books!

Craig Steely re-did his Beaver Street house twice. The first was a more conventional Edwardian intervention, but the second remodel, shown here, represented a sea change in his design approach. Note that although the facade is distinct from the Victorian right next door, no neighborhood objections were raised - practically a miracle in San Francisco. Photos: Rien van Rijthoven

[Unusually for San Francisco, the approvals process for the second Beaver Street remodel went smoothly, with no objections raised by neighbors. The fact that Craig had already known his neighbors for years was a big factor. We discussed projects where out-of-towners would come in, buy a house in some nice area of town and then try to max it out - only to be stymied by stiff neighborhood opposition. Good relations may not be something that can be created in an instant; it's something to cultivate over a long period of time. - RF]

What exactly don’t you like about the first remodel that you did here?

The first remodel kept the proportions of the existing Edwardian and was mainly repairing other people’s mistakes. The scope was limited by our budget and the fact that I didn’t know enough about construction to really tear it down to the roots. It cost only $17K! We did most of the work ourselves. We opened up the space to light, enclosed a back porch, added translucent display cabinets to the walls.  We rebuilt a lot of objects recycled from Urban Ore in that first remodel. At that time, I loved to build something based on a part that I had found. You could say that first remodel was “hot-rodded”. But those same ideas about transparency, implying space, and attention to the interstitial spaces – I’m still working with those same concepts today.

By the time "Lava Flow 5" came along, Craig Steely had refined his vocabulary further: lightness, clean lines, openness.

What do YOU think constitutes good design?

For me, good design comes down to proportion and balance on all levels: visual, intellectual, functional.

"Skateboarding is all about finding the perfect line and flow," says architect Craig Steely. He enjoys both surfing and skateboarding.

Any pet peeves?

Fear-based decision-making. At some point you need to take a risk.

How do you talk people out of a fear-based mindset?

Look at this project, Lava Flow 4 on the Big Island in Hawai’i. It’s an all-screen house. The clients had said, “We want simple!” – and then it got complicated. They wanted roll-down doors for weather protection from the storms on the Kona coast. I had to talk them out of it, and their neighbors, too. During construction, the neighbors would come by and comment, saying, “You’re making a terrible mistake!” But there was protection, both from the surrounding trees and from overhangs around the porch.

The clients for Craig Steely's "Lava Flow 4" were initially very concerned about getting wet in an all-screen house, and so were their neighbors. Eventually they decided in favor of simplicity - no roll-down doors needed. Photo: John Granen

“So what if it doesn’t work?” the clients worried. And I responded, “The worst that will happen is your furniture will get wet.” And they said, “Oh, is that all? OK, then,” and they were fine with it, once they knew what the risk really was.

How do you deal with challenges such as objections from a neighborhood association?

In order to be an architect, you have to be an optimist. Always, after an excruciating project is completed, we all say, “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” because now it’s over. One challenge is to remain civil and effective when things do happen, such as when neighbors come forward with objections. Don’t make it a pushing match. You have to find common ground. It’s about communication skills, and staying focused on communicating your point.

[At some point we wandered briefly onto the subject of surfing, about learning to recognize wave patterns and going along with them. You can't control a wave. "Go with the flow" as they say, right? Surrender as a method of control. - RF]

In another amazing maneuver, Craig Steely worked with a conservative San Francisco historic preservation association, convincing them to accept a very cutting-edge facade on an otherwise traditional streetscape. The design includes transom portholes in the front glass curtain wall, and adjustable vertical louvers on the side.

In San Francisco, neighborhood groups can have tremendous power. They can stop a project completely, and many homeowners have spent tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, only to be shot down during a design review.

You have to express respect for the neighbors’ opinions, whether they are about architecture or politics. You have to work with the neighborhood groups to make them part of the process. You have to maintain a level of decorum, discretion, and respect. You need the ability to communicate with people even when you don’t agree with them, to find some common ground. I had to convince them that my heart and soul was really in the project. So now a very modern building is going up there and everyone’s totally into it.

Ultimately, we prevailed in the design review by being more than reasonable. Compromise is a good thing, and it can actually strengthen the project in the end by providing better neighborhood context. You need broad shoulders, from which to give. We redesigned the project over and beyond what the association had requested. It ended up as a better project because of those compromises. With any design review board, you have to convince them of the care, intent, and interest that you are putting into each detail.

The "Carr Apartment" project by Craig Steely was a re-do in an existing apartment building, featuring a custom light wall/video installation. Photo: Rien van Rijthoven

What did you get out of architecture school?

The best thing I got out of architecture school at Cal Poly was gaining the ability to motivate myself. Another thing that stuck with me was the skill to evaluate my work on my own terms. Is the design successful to me? Certain school projects that I did got accolades, but other projects that went unnoticed were much more satisfying and successful to me. It’s the same with my work today.

I remember best the professors who challenged us to be self-motivated, and then gave us the freedom to run with it. Terry Hargrave, John Lange – and in Italy, Christiano Toraldo and Gianni Pettena. There were some amazing studios, too, that were all about drawing and painting. Vern Swanson, a watercolor instructor; Eric Vartiainen for drawing, who was a student of Alvar Aalto.

Do architects need to know how to draw?

For me at least, it’s very important. I think people who can draw have a certain grace to their design process and how ideas come together. I spent a lot of time in school learning to develop a physical connection between the eye and the hand. It’s just the way I work. My wedding ring has a hand and an eye on it, because the hand and the eye are so closely related in the act of design.

Sketch by Craig Steely of his "Gipsy House" project.

What type of person do you like to work with?

In terms of whether schools teach the right skills for the workplace – I don’t hire people right out of school generally. What I look for in a potential employee is character and intelligence. A person with character and brains can learn anything, pick up any new skill.

Is it really such a good idea to be friends with your employees?

It works for me. It’s a matter of communication. I look for people I can really get along with. With an office right in my home like this, it’s very close quarters. There’s no place to hide. There has to be trust. That applies to moonlighting as well. Sometimes I get projects that I don’t want to do, and I’ll give those projects to my staff. I don’t understand offices that restrict employees from working on their own outside the office. You know people are doing it, so why set them up. Don’t force your own people to be dishonest.

In this office, we are pretty loose about working hours. Everyone knows what needs to be done and by when. The people who stay are the ones who respect this. There’s a sort of internalized work ethos in a well-functioning team. Putting things back where they belong so that the next person doesn’t have to go hunting for it. My dad called that “knowing how to work” and he meant that on a construction team, one person would already have the tool ready for you.

How do you work with builders on your projects?

The usual architectural process is to send a project out for bids and choose based solely on cost [without considering any difference in quality standards among the various bidders]. But if you can establish trust earlier, it’ll be a better project. The owner should establish clear expectations early on, get the contractor involved earlier on, walk through some of their projects if possible. I have three contractors that I like to work with, categorized by project cost. Clients choose which one works best for them based on their level of expectation.

Even though Craig Steely claims he's always doing the same house over and over, it's clear that there are several parallel themes or "families" emerging, possibly in response to the various California or Hawai'i locales. The "Gipsy House" is located in Northern California. Photo: Cesar Rubio

How do you interview with potential clients?

My house is a litmus test for potential clients. They come and visit the office, right here at home, and if they like it, they’ have a good idea of what is important to me. It’s a long client interview process, on both sides. There has to be chemistry. And how do I know it’ll be a good client relationship? Lots of experience, lots of mistakes. It’s like surfing.  At first, a new surfer doesn’t understand the waves. Later, you learn to see patterns and you learn to see flow, you learn to be in the right place at the right time.

For architect Craig Steely, knowing when to engage with new clients requires the ability to see patterns and flow, similar to knowing how to surf. "Surfing is about proportion, flow, and perfecting line," he says.

It’s like being in a marketplace where everyone speaks a foreign language. At first it all sounds incomprehensible. But then you learn to perceive the cadence of speech, to see rules in the chaos. The client interview process is similar: over time, and with experience, you learn to trust your instincts.

How do you know when to tear down and when to preserve on a remodeling project?

It’s driven by the client and by the situation. You don’t want to end up with a facade that’s a parody of what it was. If a client wanted to preserve something that I didn’t feel was warranted, I’d send the client to another designer. But I like some of those really massive Victorians with the huge interior spaces. I’d like to try something with objects inside of that big envelope.

Bathroom detail from Craig Steely's "Gipsy House". Photo: Cesar Rubio

Craig Steely is not one for pomp and circumstance. The second part of our interview included Mark English as well as Rebecca. Craig arrived on a skateboard. Of course, we all met at Tartine, a San Francisco pastry shop so exclusive that you have to make an appointment there to buy a loaf of bread! Fortunately, no appointment was required to get a mocha, although I did have to cadge a dollar off him because I’d forgotten that I had run out of money…

In this part, Mark English’s questions appear in italics.

The house known as "Lava Flow 7" by Craig Steely features cast-in-place concrete and a tensioned fabric roof.

Mark English: Thank god there’s some modern work in San Francisco these days. When I first got here there was nuthin’.

Yeah, at one time if anyone used corrugated siding I thought, “Hooray!” At one time, anything modern in San Francisco was a rarity. Now the City has enough modern architecture that we can afford to be critical. That’s a good thing.

Some areas of San Francisco really do have a history, like North Beach, with the old Italian neighborhoods. Less false preservationism…

I used to live in North Beach when I first got back from Italy [after school]. I loved hearing all the old ladies speaking Italian. The place was on Kearny and Green, a cottage behind a house. We lived there until my motorcycle and furniture-building hobbies outgrew our kitchen space.

It’s interesting working out of your own house, isn’t it?

It either breaks or seals the deal for potential clients who come to visit. They can see for themselves what they’re getting into. It gives me freedom. This dialogue at the beginning makes for great clients. I’m totally honest with them about pricing, construction, and how we’re going to work on their project.

What does this driftwood hut have in common with the new house shown below, besides that both are recent designs from architect Craig Steely? Both are examples of a strong, single idea informing the design. Images courtesy Craig Steely Architecture

And then the clients interact with one another.

When my clients serve as references, they also act to pre-screen new clients for me. They can call my attention to something if they see a red flag. One potential client who had impressed me favorably went and talked with a few other people, and one of those former clients sent me an email saying, “WHOA! This guy needs to be straight with you! He’s too fixed in his ideas about what he wants.” It could just be that the potential client wasn’t as frank with me, but was more open with the other client about what he really wanted.

In another situation, a client’s negative reference actually worked in my favor. The potential client called up the reference [husband and wife] and spoke to the wife, who said that I spent too much time detailing. The potential client thought this was great! He wanted someone with an obsessive attention to detail. The point is to let the new clients know what they’re getting into.

I see you did an apartment in the Fontana building, where we just completed a project. Moving even one wall was a huge issue because of all the pipes. How did you fare in working with the management and the board?

With a building like that, every wall is full of pipes because the mechanical is all on the roof. My project was a 4-bedroom 5-bath penthouse, and we essentially made it into a one-bedroom by removing walls. We increased the electrical service from 100 to 150 Amp and had to shut the power off for the entire building for a day! That was a tough sell. This was for a steam shower. We could have done it with gas; we found a gas pipe on the roof that would have let us do it that way, but a Fontana Board member said, “No gas! It’ll explode” so we did it electrically instead.

In this San Francisco penthouse remodel, "Ludwig Apartment", Craig Steely opened the space to sun and views, combined rooms for better flow, and re-assigned functional spaces for elegance and simplicity. Built-in woodwork is custom stained walnut. Photo: Rien van Rijthoven

This particular Board member had served in the Navy in the Pacific once upon a time and he had a very military thought process, which we jokingly referred to as “vague and to the point”. I did my best to relate to him in a very “yes sir, we’ve got our best people on it, sir” attitude. If you can find a way to relate to someone, then you are more able to come to an understanding.

In our project there, we did a radiant floor and had to sell that to the building management.

Didn’t that raise the floor and make the ceilings too low?

No, not really. We pushed up the ceiling in a few places and used small Pex pipes. The main thing they were worried about was the water. I showed them a small bucket that contained all the water for the radiant system, and it was a lot less than a conventional radiator system, with its virtually inexhaustible supply of water.

In the penthouse, I used small radiators that were hidden inside a notch in the walls. Apartments are a tough job – you have to work around the building infrastructure, condo boards, and other tenants.

A second view of Craig Steely's "Ludwig Apartment" showing the San Francisco Bay. Photo: Rien van Rijthoven

You and I share an educational background at California Polytechnic. Cal Poly attracts people who build, people who work with their hands. Before the latest code changes came out, I used to do all my own structural – and I really liked it.

I love doing that part of it, too! We’ll take a stab first, and then give it to the structural engineer. Thinking about the structure is, for us, a part of the design process. By the time we hand it off, the engineer knows what we’re trying to do and can make better recommendations. Builders, too. Instead of spending time on detailing, we can tell them, “We don’t want to see too much flashing,” and then they’ll say “Well, why don’t you do it this way instead?” and it’ll be a better idea.

Which structural engineers do you use?

In San Francisco, Val Rabichev. In Hawai’i, Ray Keuning (who’s retired now) and Wally Vorfeld. They’re very hands-on and they’re willing to accommodate. I like smaller firms. A big engineering firm tends to hand the project off to a more junior person with less experience. I like working with the older guys, the ones who have those 10,000 hours of experience that Malcolm Gladwell says you need to be an expert in anything. They have a better command of the craft.

How did you get your first Hawai’i project?

Through Robert Trickey. He’s a very well-respected San Francisco furniture and upholstery designer. A few years before, I had brought him a modern Danish couch to restore.  He truly understood the mechanics of unbuilding and rebuilding it, and a great working relationship came out of it. We bonded over that project, and when he bought his property in Hawai’i, he called me.

The engineering behind Craig Steely's "Napa River House" is intended to float the living room on a special pillared base in order to preserve the root structures of the surrounding oak trees. Image courtesy Craig Steely Architecture

Every custom project is a prototype. This makes it hard to get comparable bids, because there’s no chance to do it a second time.

There are different personality types, too. The owner’s personality and needs are what drives the project. Some people are qualitative-based, others are quantitative-based. Their attitude also depends on their occupation, their station in life, even their basic happiness. With prototypes, you’re going to make mistakes. You have to take the attitude that the mistakes will end up making the project better in the end.

Two interesting details that stood out about this photo of Craig Steely's "Lava Flow 2" house were the lowered cabinet on the left, which makes for a more visually interesting composition, and the circular skylight above the round bath/shower stall that is visible from the adjoining space as well as the bath itself. Photo: J.D. Peterson

What are your tools for design?

Drawing and model-building. I like 1/4″ scale physical models. For computer visualization, I’ll draw plans and sections, and then my staff puts it into Rhino 3D for fast visualization. The clients can see right away what the status of the project is. There’s none of this “I’ll get back to you in 2 weeks with a rendering”. Renderings can be misleading if you don’t know what’s important. Sometimes people will look at a rendering and focus on some temporary texture like the wood grain, instead of looking at the form. Clients still need to use their imagination, to understand that the rendering isn’t exactly what they’re getting – it’s an abstraction.

With a physical model, you’re more invested. But, happy accidents can occur which aren’t part of the plan.

It’s obvious to me when people design solely in model. The model ends up looking great, but the change in scale to “full-size” doesn’t work. Changing formats can be helpful, though. I like to draw and I can lie to myself with a drawing, but that lie becomes apparent when switching to another medium. When that flow of design slows down, it’s time to change medium or format. Seeing things in different formats helps the design. It helps me get to what’s really important.

Craig Steely's design for "Lava Flow 6" is a simple and efficient steel frame house for a remote Hawai'i location. "Thinking about the structure is, for us, a part of the design process," says Steely.

You mentioned the importance of sticking to one design idea.

It’s a beginner’s mistake to put too many ideas into one house. They might feel that it’s their only chance, their one good client, and it’s now or never. As designers get more experience and more confidence, they feel less compelled to use all their ideas in the same project.

Sometimes models and materials can be misleading to clients who don’t know what they’re supposed to be seeing.

I had one client for a house in Hawaii who said, “Do what you want.” So I built a model, boxed it, and sent it to him with no explanation. The client responded “Aggh! Why don’t you just do what you did on this other house that you did 3 years ago?” I had to explain things to him in a way that he could accept, and I said, “I’m in a better place than I was 3 years ago. Trust me – it’ll be better.” And to his credit, the client stepped up to the plate. He realized that if the architect is happy, the client will be happier, too. Happy architects make better houses.

The themes that appear over and over again in Craig Steely's work are well developed by the time of "Lava Flow 5" - steel framing, simple lines, and most these houses seem to have the presence of water or a pool feature as well.

What about Bauhaus? I saw a Bauhaus exhibit in Berlin. The craft integration was intriguing, but it went way beyond that. The written diagrams scared me – the social hierarchy diagrams, for example.

What’s good about the Bauhaus was the emphasis on craft and functionalism as a simple idea that informs the design.

That gets us back to the importance of the single idea…

Dieter Rams is one designer who has embraced this. He was head of industrial design at Braun for 30 years. The architect, Mark Mills also talked about the simplicity of a strong idea. I can see the single idea even in things like burlwood furniture – things typically associated with hippie art, or California art. If one looks hard enough, one can see beyond the “hippie” trappings to the core of an idea. Even God’s-eye place mats and macrame could be compared to something like a Dieter Rams turntable – creation guided by an underlying set of rules that are self-created. Even macrame follows this: you have a basic rule for execution, and then there’s technique, balance, form.

Not all of Craig Steely's work is in Hawai'i. "Xiao-Yen's House" is a vertical San Francisco hillside house with the same steel frame and roof pavilion re-interpreted for a different locale. Photo: Bruce Damonte

I think of it as intention. Buildings are the artifacts of intention. Archaeology interests me for that reason, too.

The intention is like a map that shows how inherent human conditions can cross time and boundaries. Archaeology is dirty and very labor-intensive. It’s very honest.

The intention could be different, though. A building can be designed with the intention of winning awards. Or one could have a whole bundle of intentions.

If a building has a clear intent, that intent should be obvious – at least to other architects. Though even an untrained person can sense when an intent is present, even if they don’t know exactly what it is.

Other elements of the Hawaiian "Lava Flow" series that are shown in Craig Steely's San Francisco project "Xiao-Yen's House" include transparency (or perforation) and new approaches to bringing indirect daylighting deep into the interior. The roof also includes a turf garden. Photo: Bruce Damonte