Design with Pride: LGBTQI+ Architects you need to know

 

For Pride Month, Schemata recognizes architects and designers in the LGBTQI+ community who are using their platforms to advocate for LGBTQI+ professionals within industry. In sharing their stories and opinions, these individuals increase visibility of the LGBTQI+ community in the design field and also provide words of encouragement for young LGBTQI+ professionals looking to enter the field.

Horatio Law

Horatio Law is a Portland-based artist who was one of five artists commissioned to create art for the AIDS Memorial Pathway in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. . His work Ribbon of Light is a series of three laminated glass sculptures inspired by poets impacted by the HIV/ AIDS pandemic. The piece debuted this month and can be viewed in the northeast corner of Cal Anderson Park adjacent to the Capitol Hill TOD Plaza.

“Much of my work stems from my identity and experience as a gay US citizen of Asian heritage,” Law shares in an interview with Art Beat Blog.

“Social interaction and community participation are important aspects in my installation work and public art projects. I create work for regular people that examines issues of identity, memory, history and the meaning of community. As a public artist who is interested in socially engaged work, I value collaboration and partnership with community members through collecting ideas, cultural materials, and engaging residents in planning and production of public art.”

 

Jane Greenwood

Jane Greenwood is Principal at Kostow Greenwood Architects In New York City. In 2017, Greenwood was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the LGBTQI+ community in the New York Business Journal -  a result of her continuous efforts to advocate for LGBTQI+ rights within the architecture and design industry. As founder of The Organization of Lesbian + Gay Architects and Designers, she encourages rising architects and designers to feel secure in the idea that who they love is irrelevant to their profession. Through this organization, she has also formed the New York City LGBT Historic Sites Projects which identifies and documents historic places in New York Coty connected to those in the LGBTQI+ community and tells the story of their influence on American culture.

 

A.L. Hu

A.L. Hu is and an architectural designer, writer and activist dedicated to challenging others to rethink what it means to be inclusive in the design industry. Through the Ascendant Neighborhood Development Corporation, they work to provide sustainable and equitable housing for residents East Harlem. As one of the voices for Architect Magazine, Hu also calls out injustices against those who identify as non-binary in the professional space. In an interview published on The Bluebeam Blog, Hu shares pivotal moments in their career that ultimately inspired their desire to become an activist for LGBTQI+ rights.

“I was realizing that I didn’t identify as a woman, and I think realizing that also had a lot to do with the way I approached design,” Hu said. “It really got me to think outside the box to understand that there is not a single right way to be an architect.”

To read the full article, click here.

 

We hope you all are enjoying Pride Month, and that these perspectives have inspired and sparked thoughts around how we in the industry can be more inclusive of those who identify with the LGBTQI+ movement.  While the voices presented show how much progress has been made over the years, they also highlight the work that still needs to be done in support of LGBTQI+ professionals. If you are a member of the LGBTQI+ community or a corporation looking to integrate LGBTQI+ perspectives into your practice, consider looking at these resources provided by Metropolis Magazine.

Sources Cited

A.L. Hu. Architect. (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.architectmagazine.com/author/a-l-hu

Group, S. B. (n.d.). Mover & Shakers: Julia Nagele is an architectural icon in a male-dominated industry. Seattle Refined. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://seattlerefined.com/lifestyle/movers-shakers/movers-shakers-julia-nagele-the-emerald-hewitt-tallest-tower-designed-by-a-woman

Lindsay, E. (2018, July 17). Seattle AIDS Memorial Selects Lead Artist. Art Beat. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://artbeat.seattle.gov/2018/07/17/seattle-aids-memorial-selects-lead-artist/

Making an invisible history visible. NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2022, from https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/

Queer Spaces: LGBTQ voices and resources for architects and designers. Metropolis. (2022, June 2). Retrieved June 21, 2022, from https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/pride-voices-resources/

Surabhi, P., & Patil, A. S. (2021, June 23). 10 architects or designers advocating for LGBTQA+ community - RTF: Rethinking the future. RTF | Rethinking The Future. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/know-your-architects/a4323-10-architects-or-designers-advocating-for-lgbtqa-community/

5 AAPI Architects and Designers You Need to Know

In honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Schemata wants to shed light on a few architects and designers of the AAPI community that have contributed to the architectural history of America as well as those who continue to push the boundaries of architecture and design today.

Minoru Yamasaki

Minoru Yamasaki is a first-generation Japanese American master architect born in Seattle, WA. During his time studying architecture at the University of Washington, he was also working in an Alaskan cannery to pay for his tuition. Working alongside fellow Asian coworkers, many of whom were poor, inspired Yamaski to invest in his talents and use them in a way that would make his life meaningful to both himself and those around him.

While Yamasaki is best known for being the mastermind behind the design of the World Trade Center, his work can be found in the skylines of many cities across the U.S.. In Seattle specifically, he is to credit the for the designs of the IBM building, Rainier Tower, and the Pacific Science Center- a current Schemata project.

Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988)

Isamu Noguchi is a half Japanese half Irish artist and designer born in Los Angeles, California. While he is best known for his sleek and organic furniture designs, Noguchi also created sculptures, gardens, lighting designs, ceramics, architecture and set designs; drawing inspiration from the places he traveled and lived throughout his life. His work simultaneously subtle and bold, traditional and modern, set a new standard for the reintegration of the arts.

Today, you can find one of his many public sculptures “Black Sun” at Capitol Hill’s very own Volunteer Park!

To learn more about Isamu Noguchi, visit https://www.noguchi.org/

Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo

Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo are a Seattle-based duo who founded Lead Pencil Studio- a firm that contains both an architectural practice that specializes in residential and commercial buildings and an art practice that focuses on site-specific pieces that reimagine the conditions of architecture at full scale. Han, who was born in South Korean and Mihalyo, a Washington native, joined forces as undergraduate students at the University of Oregon where they won a design competition as well as the State of Oregon Development of the Year Award. Almost a decade after graduating, they opened their firm in 2002. Since then, the couple’s work has been featured in several museums and galleries throughout the US and they have continued to receive grants, awards, and residencies, thus, creating the blueprint to successfully bridge the gap between art and architecture.

To view their current projects, visit https://www.leadpencilstudio.org/

John Belford- Lelaulu

Driven by the idea of social design, Belford- Lelaulu has collaborated with nonprofit organizations across the globe such as Habitat for Humanity to design spaces that cater to the specific needs of communities battling various hardships.

In an interview with Architecture Now, he describes how his Samoan background influences his approach to his work:

“There’s a (Samoan) proverb which is ‘O le ala i le pule o le tautua’, meaning, ‘The path to authority is through service, in order to do anything in Samoa, you need to be serving. You can’t just become an architect or a chief. You have to be helping different members of the community. For me, I ask myself how I can serve the most vulnerable people in our communities.”

Through this work, he also developed a new perspective on architecture and its societal impact. This realization then sparked a desire to create more opportunities for young Pasifika people, like himself, to explore humanitarian and social architecture. As a result, he established MAU Studio – providing educational opportunities and experiences that allows New Zealand’s youth to connect with their culture and engage with their community through meaningful architecture.

To learn more about John Belford-Lelaulu, check out this article

 

Suchi Reddy

Suchi Reddy is an Indian-American architect, artist, and founder of Reddymade- a design firm based in New York. The firm’s portfolio offers a wide variety of projects ranging from single family homes to public sculptures, all embodying Reddy’s cutting edge approach to art and design. Reddy’s Work has been featured in places such as Time square and The Smithsonian where it welcomes societal engagement and generates dialogue around topics of both local and global relevance.

One of her recent pieces, “me+you” is an interactive installation that debuted at the Smithsonian back in November of 2021. The sculpture combines elements of both architecture and artificial intelligence by inviting audience members to speak their “future vision” into one of the many designated points of the cloud base and, in response, the piece uses AI to translate the meaning, tone and sentiment of their words to then be reflected in a unique combination of color & light.  According to Reddy, the piece serves almost as an “Interactive mandala”- a spiritual Icon of South Asian religious art.

For more information about Suchi Reddy and her approach to design, check out this article recently featured in W Magazine.

Cohousing During the Pandemic: An Interview with KSER 90.7 FM

Woods:
So I have to ask you, um, what brought you to, you're obviously enthusiastic in talking about this. I know it's your job. I know it's your company, but, but what brought you to being so involved and supportive beyond that of co-housing?

Grace Kim: (02:39)
So I, um, learned about co-housing in the early nineties when I was in architecture school. And I thought at the time, um, we were, we were studying in London and, and my husband, who at the time I was dating, we thought it was just another type of housing that you know, of the various housing types. We were learning about that this was one, and it was only about 15 years later that we realized that was when it was first being introduced outside of Denmark, where cohousing started. And so we, it was sort of an, an innovative, alternative housing style that was being shared with us at the time, but it captured our imagination because we saw that there was so much wrong about everyone living in their nuclear households, in their single family houses, in, you know, the suburbs and, and re really relying on the automobile to get us around.

Grace Kim: (03:24)
And all of those things were isolating people. And we just liked the idea that you would know your neighbors, you would invest in your community and you would invest in your, your neighborhood and really put down roots and look out for one another. And that's very much sort of the way that I was raised. My I'm Korean, um, American and my culture is very much about community and about, um, intergenerational and about, you know, living, to supporting people in the community mm-hmm . Um, and so that was just something that we aspired to. And as we moved back to Seattle in early 2000, my husband and I kind of made a commitment that we would try to figure out how do we move towards living in a, in a more intentional community focused way. Uh, we thought it would be with his family actually as living in a family compound, that was sort of an early, early idea. Um, and then it just morphed into that helping us solidify, you know, the urban location we wanted to live in and, um, a very interconnected and, and intergenerational way to live in a very urban environment. But cohousing, doesn't always, it's usually not in an urban environment like Sunnyside village, uh, which schema workshop my company is, the architect of, um, Sunnyside is very much in a suburban slash rural setting. And so that is the more typical, uh, setting for co-housing in the us.

Woods:
Ah, okay. So of that combination kind of thing, can you describe that a little bit more? I'm from Chicago so I’m trying to understand. In the construct of rural and urban, where does that actually put cohousing?

Kim:
So, I mean, it's, it, it's usually in suburban settings in that it's, you know, oftentimes in the US cohousing is single family homes or attached duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes or something like that. And, and I say in Sunnyside’s case it's suburban slash rural because it used to be farmland. And as development has happened over time in the city as Marysville there're, you know, they're just at the end of a street that is basically a couple of subdivisions. So the area is transforming into a more suburban style of residential, single family homes, residential pattern, but it, it has very much a, a rural character on when you're on the property. And also it's a wetland, um, a stream, a Creek and, and wetland buffer. So it, it will retain a lot of that character.

To listen to the full interview, Click here