This is the third in a series of posts by Portland Architecture guest blogger Corbin Keech. Corbin is looking at how the recession has affected recent architecture school graduates.
Corbin received a bachelor's degree in architecture from Kansas State University in 2006, and worked for the past two and a half years at ZGF Architects. He now provides contract design work for several architecture, urban design and planning companies in Portland.
My initial interest in architecture was never about having an impact on society. It was not about participating in something larger than myself, or creating a legacy. Instead, at an early age I was merely seduced by the sight of a metropolis and its energy. More abstractly, architecture was more about expression and form. Being a virtuous artist was of above all my greatest concern.
However myopic and naive these attitudes were, I luckily was not immune from seeing the bigger picture. Professional work has illuminated the value of contributing to a project that is rooted in something outside of itself. While it took some time to see how meaningful this process can be, for others working for a larger cause was the objective from the start. Eden Brukman radiates this ethic.
Today, Brukman is the Research Director of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council and, like Naomi Cole (the subject of last week’s “Besides Architecture” post), has found a means of influencing the architecture and urban design world on an enormous scale. Similarly idealistic and purposeful in her quest to implement broad and sweeping change in sustainable design, Brukman is another example of an individual who found architecture to be a means to an end: a way of discovering her true calling.
Brukman earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley with a minor in visual studies - a program she crafted on her own. From there she earned a Master’s degree in illustration from the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. While at Berkeley she had an internship at Esherick Homsey Dodge and Davis, a high respected architecture firm in the Bay Area, and after graduation worked at Richard Meier & Partners. With Meier, she contributed to projects such as the Crystal Cathedral in Anaheim (pictured above and below) as well as the landmark Getty Center in Los Angeles.
“There’s an interesting desire to nourish life here,” says Brukman. “I didn’t come to Portland because I wanted to work in architecture. I came here because I wanted to get into research and information outreach as they relate to sustainable design practices. I figured this place would have more opportunities for someone interested in sustainable design. I wanted to develop a better toolkit as a means to influence change.”
She spent four years as the Sustainability Coordinator at SERA Architects before moving to her current position at Cascadia, where her primary concern is developing the standards and procedures of the International Living Building Institute’s groundbreaking Living Building Challenge. The purpose of the program is to create design, construction and occupancy standards with which the built environment is in perfect balance with the natural environment.
The Living Building Challenge is, according to the ILBI website, a “rigorous performance standard that defines the closest measure of true sustainability in the built environment, using a framework of what is currently possible and given the best knowledge available today.” While different levels of LEED certification are earned through credits and prescriptive standards, Brukman says the Living Building Challenges is instead an “additive” process more akin to building codes.
“Here,” she explains, “we start with the ideal – with what could be. Beyond that, the program doubles as an advocacy tool, in that it narrows the gap between the ideal solution and what’s possible today. This forces us to acknowledge market realities but work to achieve something beyond these limitations. I also like how it forces us to bring the human element into the equation. It brings experience in the truest sense back into design. Lastly, there is no feeling of propriety. Ego is left at the door. It is understood that people should learn from each other's design.”
Working for the USGBC and toward the Living Building Challenge, Brukman feels part of a design culture where information is more easily exchanged and her impact more broadly felt. “Now, I’m able to contribute to dozens of projects, whereas architectural projects require a more narrow focus.”
It's not to suggest Brukman developed an aversion to the narcissistic tendencies of the architectural world. Rather, she firmly believes that outreach and research are ways in which she can personally give back as well as feel professionally sated. Additionally, she believes that architects often search elsewhere because of a subconscious thirst to have an impact in the world, and sometimes architecture is quite frankly, stifling.
“The profession doesn’t often embrace the notion that anything is possible,” Brukman adds. “Some people leave because the imposed limitations can be exhausting. Creative people want to explore possibilities. They don’t want to be constrained. We tend to start with limits - an idea that is fundamentally about prescriptions or what we can’t do - rather than starting with the ultimate vision of what could be. This is what drew me to the Living Building Challenge. There’s a greater sense of optimism.”
Asked if she considers Portland to be an easier town for architects to take a risk and look elsewhere for work, she wasn’t sure Portland was any different than other large city. “I think it’s more about your personal condition rather than the place in which you live. I have friends in LA, San Francisco, London, and here in Portland that have left architecture. I think it really has more to do with the options in the city - each of these cities has an enormous amount of opportunity. Basically, you can take a risk if your personal life allows it. In other words, it is less about place and more about commitments outside of your career.”
While this reinforces the idea that architecture both sustains and defeats us, what I continue to find compelling is the notion that these struggles force us to grow in ways that allow us to succeed elsewhere. Not only are our skills transferable, but we also develop an itch to continually search for something greater, whether it is through our work or personal lives. Ken Tomita’s story (subject of the next installment in this series) is one of resiliency and decisiveness, and further proof that gut instincts are there to follow, not dismiss.
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