“Women are doing some of the most prestigious work in New York” but nobody knows who they are, according to architect and filmmaker Beverly Willis, who wants to change this with her new movie about the women who have shaped the city.

Willis’ film Unknown New York: The City that Women Built premiered last week, 6 June 2018. Written and directed by the 90-year-old architect, the 17-minute film documents the hundreds of female architects and engineers that have contributed to Manhattan’s built environment.

Female architects don’t receive the recognition they deserve

Her aim is to raise awareness of women working in the architecture industry, as not enough gain the recognition they deserve, she told Dezeen.

“One of the things that I like to do is ask people can they name five women architects,” Willis said.

“Usually, people can only name one or possibly two, maybe three because people like Maya Lin, Zaha Hadid and Julia Morgan are well known, but past that hardly anybody can name another woman architect.”

The American architect says this contradicts the fact that women are making major contributions to architecture, particularly in New York, giving examples like Studio Gang founder Jeanne Gang and Diller, Scofidio + Renfro partner Elizabeth Diller – who was recently named one of the world’s most influential people by Time magazine.

“The irony of course is that women are doing some of the very most prestigious work in New York, Manhattan right now,” said Wills. “So they’re certainly being selected to do the premiere work.”

Women have historically been left out of architectural records

As well as filmmaking, the architect set up the non-profit Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation in 2002, to improve the culture for women learning and working in architecture today through education.

She was prompted to launch the initiative in response to the lack of females recognised in architectural history books.

“I became very distressed at the age of 75 that women were not in the architectural history books, or any architectural references,” Willis said.

“If you were in high school or college and were reading architectural history you saw no mention of women instead perhaps of Jane Jacobs,” she added. “That type of mission undermines women and their reputations.”

Born in Tulsa, Oklahaoma, Willis set up her eponymous San Francisco-based design in 1954. The firm has completed a number of large-scale projects in the city, including The San Francisco Ballet Building and the transformation of three Victorian residences into the Union Street Stores shopping centre, which is credited as the first major adaptive reuse scheme.

She is also a founding member of the National Building Museum, in Washington DC and has written a number of publications and directed films, including a documentary that listed the women who worked for US architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Film follows major moves to improve gender equality in architecture

The past year has seen a huge push to improve gender equality and women’s recognition, through events and movements like International Women’s Day, global marches and #MeToo.

Dezeen launched the Move the Needle initiative to help encourage diversity in the architecture and design industry after our survey of the world’s 100 biggest architecture firms revealed a “quite shocking” lack of gender diversity at senior levels. A number of major firms, including Foster + Partners and Africa’s largest architecture practice, Boogertman + Partners, promised to tackle their gender pay gap in response.

Following her inclusion on this year’s Time 100 list, Diller told Dezeen that the male-dominated architecture industry is undergoing “dramatic change”, with women in architecture experiencing a series of victories and celebrations.

Japanese architect Itsuko Hasegawa winning the inaugural Royal Academy Architecture Prize, Mexican architect Frida Escobedo being named as the second woman to design London’s Serpentine Pavilion, which opened today, and Spanish architect Carme Pinós becoming the second woman selected to design the annual MPavilion in Melbourne are among the others.

Read on for an edited transcript of our interview with Beverly Willis:

Eleanor Gibson: Tell me about the film Unknown New York: The City that Women Built.

Beverly Willis: The background of the film is a programme which the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation did called Built for Women, or Built by Women. In terms of its formation prior to going pubic it was very controversial because the argument was that for this programme to be successful we would need to have at least 100 women participating and the thought was that would be almost impossible to do. But the decision was to go ahead and send out a request for women who had been involved in design or building projects in Manhattan and so we were astounded when we got 350 responses.

Then, at that point, in terms of the exhibit that followed there was also a map that was done. I looked at the map and I was just amazed because it really showed how much of Manhattan was involving women in the design and building process. So that inspired me to do the film. The film is really a mapping which shows you the coverage of Manhattan of women’s projects.

Eleanor Gibson: Who are some of the key architects and projects featured?

Beverly Willis: If my memory serves me correctly, and I hope I’m not wrong without looking this up, there were roughly 80 different women. I went back actually to Emily Roebling and Brooklyn Bridge, which was still in the 1800s and I did include some early 20th century women, prior to the second world war.

The emergence of women architects and designers, and participants basically in every aspect of not only building, but every aspect across the country and everything else was after the second world war. So primarily the majority of the women either practiced and are now retired or are current women practitioners.

Eleanor Gibson: What prompted you to create the film now?

Beverly Willis: One of the things that I like to do is that I like to ask people if they can name five women architects. Usually people can only name one or possibly two, maybe three because people like Maya Lin, Zaha Hadid and Julia Morgan are well known but past that hardly anybody can name another woman architect.

I like to ask people if they can name five women architects

Not every women in this film is an architect, because it also includes some engineers and a couple of developers and a contractor, but the majority of course are women architects. And so there are many, many outstanding women. Women like Jeanne Gang, Liz Diller or others like that who do the most incredible work.

My other interest in doing this, and probably the most important is the reason I founded the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, is that I became very distressed at the age of 75 that women were not in the architectural history books, or any architectural references.

If you were in high school or college and were reading architectural history you saw no mention of women instead perhaps of Jane Jacobs or the woman who created the environmental movement [Wangari Maatha]. That type of mission undermines women and their reputations.

The irony of course is that women are doing some of the very most prestigious work in New York, Manhattan right now. So they’re certainly being selected to do the premiere work.

In my mind there is absolutely no debate about whether or not there should be a wide selection of women noted in architectural history, particularly for the 20th century when the women I’m thinking of blossomed into their own practices.

Eleanor Gibson: Why were these women overlooked?

Beverly Willis: Well there is a chauvinist concept that has been going back for even centuries, an effort on the male side to name women as designers. When I was a young architect it was quite overt – there would be articles in the newspaper and magazines that said women innately did not have the ability to design as well as men did.

That of course was not only applied to women in architecture but it was applied to women in art and music, and other artistic fields.

I became very distressed that women were not in the architectural history books

This was a belief on the part of men that was carried over for many decades before them and in more recent years this discussion has gone underground, if you will, because you no longer read these sorts of articles. But that doesn’t mean the idea on part of many of the men that are practicing that still doesn’t exist. Of course, I’m talking now about architectural historians, that still doesn’t exist.

I can give you an example for the film I did called 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright. That film was shown to the premiere historian of Frank Lloyd Wright who had actually printed incorrect things about women in Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio. All he did when he found out he had been publishing untruths was to shrug his shoulders.

That man, while he probably did a lot of primary research on aspects on Frank Lloyd Wright’s career, he never bothered to do any primary research on the woman architects in the studio of Frank Lloyd Wright. But it wasn’t just him, there are hundreds of books that have been written about Frank Lloyd Wright and my film was the research that had never been done in Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio.

That film, which I did actually about 10 years ago, has become a worldwide phenomena and has recently been shown in Dublin, Ireland a few months ago and another programme here in the United States, so it’s still being shown. It is a good illustration that the male historians have had no interest in giving any consideration, either past or present.

Eleanor Gibson: When did a change happen that caused today’s female architects to be better recognised?

Articles said women innately did not have the ability to design as well as men

Beverly Willis: I’m not sure they are better recognised, that’s why I did the film. I don’t believe they are better recognised. Because if they were better recognised and I were to ask a man, and possibly a woman, to name five women architects they would be able to rattle off five, given the fact that in this film alone there are around 79 to 80 women.

Eleanor Gibson: There has recently been a lot of focus on improving diversity in architecture. Have you noticed a change in the promise for female architects?

Beverly Willis: Number one, I don’t consider diversity the right word for women. There are more women in the United States than there are men. The women in terms of architecture make up approximately 20 per cent of all the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in the United States.

We do not have a count of the total number of women architects because if they are not members of the AIA, we have no way of counting them so we are not really sure of the exact percentage. But say it is roughly 20 to 25 per cent. That figure has been growing steadily since post world war. After the second world war there were only one or two per cent women architects in the United States. Again members of the AIA and I was one of them.

I don’t consider diversity the right word for women

So each year there has been some growth and I think that the growth has been that, as women see other women succeed, they become more enthusiastic about studying architecture and believing that they can succeed.

Women take to it like a duck takes to water. In the schools today, they are roughly about 50 per cent of the class and they’re also doing better: they’re making high grades and they’re really excelling at the university level. They seem to have extraordinary skills.

Eleanor Gibson: Who are the female architects shaping New York today?

Beverly Willis: I really hesitate to call out any specific names because even in my script I don’t do that. I don’t want to be in a position of rating the women, this is not a competition at all, as I say.

My motivation was numbers, I was after numbers so I could show a map that covered Manhattan. If I started to have a design competition where you would wind up with 10 or 15, I can’t accomplish my aim, which was to show how much of Manhattan was being designed and built by women.

Eleanor Gibson: How important are their contributions to the city?

Beverly Willis: Incredible. The film shows these examples and the names of the women and people have expressed amazement to me. They’re learning things that they’ve never known before: this is what I call a Wow film because people’s response to the film is invariably “Wow, I didn’t know that”.

The post Hardly anyone can name more than one female architect, says director of new movie about women that built New York appeared first on Dezeen.

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La photographe française Pauline Théon est une passionnée qui ne sort jamais sans son appareil. Son univers visuel se définit par des clichés monochromatiques desquels ressort une sensation de mélancolie et de douceur. Le choix de l’argentique est simple : privilégier l’émotionnel, le sentiment, l’humain. Plus qu’une passion, la photographie représente pour elle une thérapie : un moyen de s’exprimer, d’extérioriser. Le portrait, le paysage ou encore l’architecture n’ont pas de secrets pour elle. Ses portraits cohabitent dans un monde silencieux et mystérieusement nostalgique, se composant de modèles très différents, avec tout de même un attrait pour l’androgyne : cheveux courts, crânes rasés… Alors si vous souhaitez poser pour elle, vous savez ce qu’il vous reste à faire!

With a rich history and an incredible track record of success, the WantedDesign’s Design School Workshop launched at the start of this year’s New York Design Week, NYCxDesign, mixing and mashing students and mentors from all over the world to share, to collaborate, and to learn.

The co-founders of Wanted Design, Odile Hanaut and Claire Piage, have always considered design education critical to the success of the design profession, and have once again put it at the center (and as the finale of the week) of their design event. Indeed, the initiative spanned both Wanted’s—The students worked in the Wanted Brooklyn location in Industry City, and then researched and presented in Wanted Manhattan at the Tunnel.

Hanaut was enthusiast about the result: “This year brought the biggest number of participating schools and students (and languages and cultural backgrounds), and certainly the richest in term of exchanges and conceptualization. It was a group of extremely motivated, skilled, curious, talented and enthusiastic students. And in listening to their final presentation, I felt that we can be reassured about the important role this new generation of students will play in envisioning and designing tomorrow’s people lives.”

Led by James Meraz and Chiara Ferrari of ArtCenter College of Design, this year’s them was “Future Heirloom.” Here was the pitch:

Students were tasked with discovering what constitutes the modern heirloom, and how we contain and display these heirlooms in meaningful and tactile ways that can be passed down from generation to generation. An heirloom may be defined as an antiquity or some kind of a social, cultural and family artifact, but the question needs to be asked, “What are the artifacts that millennials value?” What do they feel has equity, and are meaningful enough to pass on to future generations?

Further, the workshop confronted a shift in the way we consider collection and preservation of “moments of meaning.”

While the object may continue to be important, it might now share its dominance or presence with the containment-display, or preservation of our evidence of the past. Craft, surface, textile and material conjugation will play no small part in this exploration. Design teams will explore outcomes that may have a digital and material conclusion, making connections through analog and digital fabrication modes. What is the hybrid Heirloom of the future? How will Nex-gen make connections to their past, present, and future?

Added Maraz and , “The brief was devised to have a philosophical, even existential component, as well as challenging these young designers consider the “moments of meaning” that they would want to leave behind; what might they speculate around what we would value enough to pass on to future generations. I actually was not prepared for the depth of intellectual curiosity and passion that these 33 multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary students brought into the workshop every single day.”

At the final presentation, the Jury Committee chose their favorites, but there was a lot to get excited about, and a ton of Q&A during the presentation. The presentations went over an hour longer than they were supposed to, but nobody minded since the material was so fascinating.

Here are the participants, and then on to the work!

Participating Schools and Leads
Centro (Mexico), Sebastian Ocampo
Aalto University (Finland), Pentti Kareoja
STRATE School of design (France), Cecilia Talopp
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, New York), Constantin Boym
ArtCenter College of Design (Pasadena, California), David Mocarski, James Meraz, Chiara Ferrari
The Strzemin´ski Academy of Art Lódz´ (Poland), Dr. Boguslaw Krzciuk Appalachian State University (Boone, North Carolina), Richard Prisco

Jury
Allan Chochinov, Partner, Core77; Chair, MFA Products of Design
Amy Auscherman, Herman Miller
Tomek Rygalik, Stuio Rygalik

Sponsors and Mentors
The sponsors and mentors for the workshop were Lauren Slowik from Shapeways, Emily Howe from FilzFelt, Marwa Cupif and Valerie Cottereau from Artefacto, and Louis Lim from Makingworks.

Core77 was once again the media partner, XL Airways was the airline partner, along with Strzeminski Academy of Art Lódz from Poland, participating with the support of the Polish Cultural Institute New York and KGHM Foundation.

Let’s get to the projects!

WINNER: IMPRINT 

Aliette Platiau, Strate School of Design
Linda Xin, Pratt Institute
Barbara Reszka, Strzemin´ski Academy of Art Lódz´
Mason Hawkins, Appalachian State University
Andres Zavala, ArtCenter College of Design

Imprint is a smart wearable that transmits both the physical and intangible memories of your loved ones to future generations, acting as the surrogate of a loved one. The heirloom captures the physical embrace between two people through its cast brass form, expressing the details and folds of the skin in the final form. It is embedded with sensing technology that stores the history of a loved one through location tracking and heartbeat.

Data capturing is activated when two loved ones engage in the same gesture—or “Imprint” moment. Location tracking and heartbeat are collected to indicate a connection to place. The “Imprint” is passed down from one generation to another, keeping the data of the original family member stored in it forever. When the device gets passed down to the next generation, the user feels gentle pulses of warmth whenever he or she passes locations where “memory” data was captured. “We imagine that IMPRINT can also be used to comfort users in times of need with its emotion-sensing capabilities,” adds the team.

“Ubiquitous computing and digital sensing give us the opportunity to capture memories and give life to objects in ways we haven’t before. Imprint is a response to our generation’s cultural shift, where experiences are more valued than objects within themselves. Our future heirloom is about passing down intangible experiences in a surrogate object, that lives and breathes with each generation.”

RUNNER UP: NEO HERITAGE

Tony Yau, Aalto UniversityHugo Artarit, Strate School of Design
Marie Beaulieu, Centro Alynn Tergevorkian, ArtCenter College of Design

Neo Heritage is a provocation that reminds the public that our trash is precious. What we are leaving behind will affect our future generations. According to Geyer Roland of Science Advances Journal (June 2017), as of 2015, approximately 6300 tons of plastic waste has been generated—79% has been dumped into landfills, 12% has been incinerated, and only 9% percent has been recycled. The team argues, “Plastic waste is the global heirloom we will inevitably leave behind for our future generations if current trends continue.”

“Our team is proposing a movement; inviting artists, designers, social impact and environmental groups to take part in repairing cracks and breaks in the city using the recycled plastic we mindlessly dispose of on a daily basis. Collection receptacles are placed in central locations of the city, acting as a beacon of change. This invites those who dispose of their plastic to follow the painted lines throughout the city which will eventually lead them to another receptacle, or a piece of the city that has been repaired.”

“An heirloom is something that leaves a trace behind for future generations. We want to leave behind the trace of being good ancestors.”

SPECIAL MENTION: CALLA

Jose miguel Ramirez, Centro
Kartikaye Mittal , Pratt Institute
Adrianna Pomykacz, Strzemin´ski Academy of Art Lódz´
Sophie Randleman, Appalachian State University
Eveliina Juuri, Aalto University

Calla is a solar-powered felt lamp that records and reproduces the movement, temperature and intensity of sunlight. It relies on minimal, basic technologies that allow for it to last for decades, establishing and maintaining a dialogue with the surrounding nature.

You can use CALLA as a freestanding or wall lamp. When you turn it on, the device reminds you of the natural lighting experience and encourages you to go out into nature “to become part of a universal heirloom. We were inspired by the phenomenon of phototropism, the growth of an organism in response to a light stimulus,” offers the team. “Calla reacts to stimuli from the environment, and creates a sense of belonging to a larger ecosystem, while simultaneously strengthening the bond between individuals through a ritual and positive emotion. The information recorded by Calla acts as environmental indicators that will communicate the state of the environment in order to increase its protection and combat its degradation. It is the passing on of nature as a gift and the reminder of our place in it.”

AMALGAM

Gabriela Barrera, Pratt Institute
Lindsay Everhart, Appalachian State University
Marta Wota, Strzemin´ski Academy of Art Lódz´

Amalgam, the “family identity pattern generator,” defines the future heirloom by building a unified connection between family generations. Using an algorithm, it decodes one’s genetics, personality, and signature to produce an abstract pattern on a glass tile that is unique to that individual. Amalgam allows the user to then “layer their legacy” among those who came before them—much like a family tree.

“Amalgam uses moments of meaning, such as weddings, to initiate the creation of a new tile for those involved to build emotional connection,” explains the team. “The transparency of the glass tiles allows families to see the overlay of previous generations and highlight their similarities/differences. Light embodies the spirit of a person and can be used commemorate specific members of family during a time of celebration or difficulty. Using art as a medium, Amalgam merges science, technology and emotions to create a unique experience that can become a ritual for future generations to come.”

KII

Markus Holste, Aalto University
Valentina Villarreal, Centro
Jeremy Silberberg, Pratt Institute
Noah Howells, Appalachian State University
Marta Grodek, Strzemin´ski Academy of Art Lódz´

Kii is a portable device that users hold and interact with to control their environment in the AR/VR space. It is comprised of a series of linkages or “totems” that represent various categories that are indicated via tactile symbols on each link. Each totem is touch-sensitive, and acts as selection tool. Kii has two control pieces at either end of the device that function as the user’s hands and are manipulated to move objects inside of AR/VR.

“With Kii, users can create an infinite archive of virtually inhabitable memories,” submits the team. “Kii features customizable totems that indicate landscapes, objects, and structures that exist in augmented and virtual reality. As users move these totems, their respective augmented and virtual representations are altered accordingly. Once the experience is complete, it is stored for future accessibility. The result is a collection of layered, personal experiences that can be shared with future generations to emphasize the intimate revelation of memory.”

MELIO (Collective Memory)

Alice Hixon Kirk, Pratt Institute
Agathe Baudin, Strate School of Design
Miranda Lapour , ArtCenter College of Design
Ryan Decker, Appalachian State University
Martyna Piasciak, Strzemin´ski Academy of Art Lódz´

Melio (Collective Memory) is an immersive AR/VR platform for collective memory. Users access a memory catalog of collective creation and curation with the personal Melio Stone—your key to the collective memory space. “The Melio Stone is the last physical manifestation of precious materiality that millennial nomads require,” argues the team.

“AR-capable glasses scan the unique profile of your Melio Stone to unlock an augmented world of collective memories. From here, you can upload images, video, or audio content to document what is unique and precious to you. You can submit your content to the collective memory database, and customize your visibility settings. Melio’s dynamic interface allows you to immerse yourself in a private moment, or to share your favorite memories and artifacts in group scenarios and new research modalities. Become a part of our larger collective legacy by submitting your unique perspective to this interactive time capsule.”

Root(S)

Julia Popova, Aalto University
Mitja Behnke, Strate School of Design
Alberto Zinser, Centro
Charlie Hodges, ArtCenter College of Design

“An heirloom is passed from one generation to the next, carrying meaning and memory, while adapting to the needs of each new owner,” offers the team. “Living in the Anthropocene means the environment is now our heirloom. But in a world of notifications, alerts, updates and interruptions, we are losing connection to this heirloom, to the moments that matter most. We wondered, if people could customize nature, would they care about it as much as they care about their social media presence?”

“Root(S) is our solution. Using CRISPR technology, we can now put up to 100mb of data into cellular DNA without corruption or genetic mutation—an organic harddrive. Just as people have carved their initials into bark, Root(S) uses this technology to allow people to safely engrave their initials into the genome of a tree. Leaf samples collected from every visit become digital keys which—when scanned with a smartphone—enable access to archived videos, photos and songs from that day. Your growing tree becomes the backdrop for your life.”

“:We believe that personalizing a tree at a cellular level will engender a powerful bond between a user and their tree, creating a living heirloom that will extend across generations. It’s time we allowed people to leave a permanent mark today that makes for a better tomorrow. “