In the most recent Coffee with Cheryl, a webinar presented by KI and IIDA as part of the Community as Strategy program series, a panel of design professionals pondered community building in the time of COVID and what it means to meaningfully engage with community during times of societal unrest.
Last year’s Community as Strategyprogram series took IIDA and KI to six U.S. cities where designers and clients discussed the importance of supporting communities through design and described their unique respective community needs. This year’s series looks drastically different—through the use of virtual technology—but the primary thesis remains: maintaining community is vital, and in challenging times, how will design help?
This iteration of Coffee with Cheryl was moderated by IIDA Executive Vice President and CEO Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA, and Deborah Breuning, vice president of A+D marketing at KI, and brought together 16 design professionals to consider our most pressing questions for the future: In a work-from-home world, how can design help maintain community? What will be important designers to communicate within the built environment? How do we continue to engage in community given all we know about the world around us?
Panelists were invited to share their thoughts on ways design can support, reinforce, and engage community, even through times of adversity. This notion of community, given that we are living through the pandemics of both coronavirus and systemic racism, is more important than ever. According to Diana Farmer-Gonzales, IIDA, Assoc. AIA, managing director and principal of Gensler’s Miami office, “We have to be intentional with community and with how we build it.”
Moderated by:
Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA, executive vice president and CEO, IIDA
Deborah Breuning, vice president of A+D marketing, KI
Panelists:
Abby Scott, IIDA, senior interior designer and architectural studio leader, HDR
Alexandra Bonner, IIDA, project interior designer, FCArchitects
In the spring of 2020, in response to a rapidly changing world, IIDA developed a weekly series of conversations focused on the impact of sudden change on the design community, and in turn, design’s role in impacting our collective futures.
The Collective D(esign) webinar series saw the curating of dialogues centering on topics ranging from healthcare, hospitality, and workplace design to education, product design, sustainability, and more. As part of IIDA’s 2020 NeoConnect programming, IIDA presented Collective D(esign): Women Lead Design to center the voices of women on the importance of ensuring diversity and equity in the future of design. With an eye on leadership and how women specifically lead, the panel addressed the importance of being able to see yourself reflected in your leaders and managers.
The discussion was hosted by IIDA CEO and Executive Vice President Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA, and featured panelists Robin Klehr Avia, FIIDA, regional managing principal at Gensler from the IIDA New York Chapter; Gabrielle Bullock, FAIA, IIDA, principal and director of global diversity at Perkins and Will from the IIDA Southern California Chapter; Sarah Kuchar, IIDA, creative director of Sarah Kuchar Studio from the IIDA Illinois Chapter; and Angie Lee, AIA, IIDA, partner and design director of interiors at FXCollaborative from IIDA’s New York Chapter.
Although the movement for gender-based equality in the workplace is decades-old, the recent “Me Too” movement brought to the forefront the dangers that a homogeneous workplace culture can produce, particularly when leadership roles lack diversity in gender. As society faces current challenges—an ongoing global health pandemic, and a reckoning for an urgent need for racial justice—it’s imperative to act from an intersectional lens and strive to promote leadership and equity across demographics including race, sexual orientation, age, and socio-economic backgrounds as well as career experience.
“I believe that this is an opportunity for us to dismantle the systematic racism that exists, and address and reset our profession to truly, with eyes wide open, embrace, celebrate, and apply unique perspectives through an inclusive and just lens,” says Gabrielle Bullock. She notes that although this movement and awareness may be new to some, it has been the sustained reality for others. By encouraging change in our industry, we can better support leadership from different demographics, and more successfully design with an informed vision for a more diverse and inclusive use of interiors.
“We cannot deny the power of representation—seeing someone who looks like you, seeing them in a critical position of leadership is so important.”
— Cheryl Durst
One of the most effective ways to elicit real change is through recognizing and honoring the differences that exist. Race, ethnicity, gender identity, orientation, and socioeconomic background all contribute significantly to the ways individuals relate to the world around them. To navigate a world, and especially a workplace environment and culture, that doesn’t take these differences into account can be difficult and create roadblocks to focusing on the work.
“Being brought up in a male-dominated profession, culture, and society, the advice that I was given and that I applied to myself would not work out most of the time.” Angie Lee explains, “I had to try everything until I found what worked for me. And it was a little challenging because it took a little longer to find my voice, find my footing.” She notes that although she didn’t always have a lot of women to lean on, she did have male figures that believed in her and pushed her to develop skills and get out of her comfort zone, recognizing that “it was always a model of leadership that didn’t fit me.”
“Give opportunity, and give it young. You might think that you’re [giving opportunity] because it’s a woman more often than you should, but I guarantee you’re probably just not doing it enough.”
— Sarah Kuchar
This process of conforming to a workforce not built for you nor led by those like you creates an added burden for young professionals. Instead of spending time developing and innovating the industry, they can spend years just learning how to navigate these settings. The experience of learning from a leader that you see yourself in and one who knows how to move through the world from a similar background is invaluable and important to remember when you move into a leadership role.
When Robin Klehr Avia was a young designer interviewing at architectural firms, she noted that she only had one interview in which she was interviewed by a woman. “Margo Walsh affirmed for me that it was possible for a woman to be recognized and rewarded. There was somebody in my image across the table and she was in charge and the boss and that had an incredible effect on me.”
Avia differentiates this experience from traditional mentorship, recognizing that although Graham was indeed a mentor, she was more importantly a sponsor. While you learn a lot about the industry and your profession through mentorship, you still need someone to put you in the room. “it’s about a sponsor opening doors for us—it’s about someone putting us in a place where we can succeed. I think that that is really what we need to be for other women. We need to be their sponsors.”
“I see it as a responsibility and honor to be able to mentor, sponsor, share, you know to anybody who needs it and wants it.”
— Gabrielle Bullock
Mentorship is an invaluable part of shaping yourself as a professional. But without a sponsor, you don’t always have access to the opportunities that grow your career. “I was given many opportunities to fail,” explains Lee. She notes that as she looks back she can now see that many of the men she considered mentors were actually sponsors that gave her opportunities to grow. “I didn’t meet my mentors until I joined organizations like IIDA.”
Bullock notes that she recognizes the importance in her visibility and success. “I am a role model to some. An example of what you could be, how far you could go. As a black woman in this industry, I think of it as an honor to provide this for others.”
“I’ve been at this for 44 years. I think the best part is that I can look back and see the structure that others are building upon the foundation.”
— Robin Klehr Avia
For some designers, it’s not enough to work within the current systems and processes. Sarah Kucher started her own business after working in larger firms and finds that being a woman-owned business leader and designer has given her the opportunity to provide the guidance and help that she had received in her career. She notes that “there is a strong movement of supporting women-owned businesses,” and credits her visibility with forming an alliance within the Chicago creative community. “I’ve connected with several female entrepreneurs in the city and creative fields we meet quarterly and we help each other.”
Leading as a woman is inherently different, and Kucher recognizes that “Leadership is about organizing people and getting people in a big group to have and feel purpose.” She reflects that being a successful leader isn’t about being the most technically skilled but rather effectively motivating and creating a collaborative space.
“How we came up through the ranks, what we want to change going forward, and how to help us dream big enough. That’s what I lost along the way trying on these models of leadership that never jogged well.”
— Angie Lee
Bullock recognizes that “there is a difference between management and leadership,” and “navigating that line in figuring out when to be one or the other has been very interesting.”
Leadership can look many different ways, but the most rewarding aspect of leading can be observing the changes that you have actively made, and those that your visibility creates. Being that beacon for younger designers can provide the freedom to carve out their space in the industry and courage to take more risks.
“I can see women that I’ve sponsored making the world a better place; I talk to a lot of young people I work with about placing value on significance over success,” Bullock reflects. “I think it’s important in that significance isn’t like a one-off—it’s not about what you did last week or last month but it’s really about what you do over the course of many years it’s your life’s work.”
Watch the full conversation that further explores leadership and diversity in design, examining race and gender, while looking forward to the future, finding optimism during a tenuous time.
Events of the past centuries, the past decades, and most recently in past weeks and days have painfully and plainly illuminated the disparities in our culture and society. We are at a pivotal moment where we must face great societal challenges that will not be repaired without great collective effort. Confronting racism, injustice, and a need for equity is critical to moving forward, and current events expose how much work needs to be done for us all to really “be in this together.” We know that design is but one small part of that larger equation—so why not start with the change we can most immediately affect?
Design illuminates disparity and helps close the gaps—from healthcare and education to public space and urban planning. Design in all its manifestations is a force for change.
Recently at IIDA, we’ve considered, like so many of you, what “re-entry” and a return to life in a post-pandemic world might be. Certainly, not the same world we left behind four months ago. And definitely not a so-called “new normal.” Frankly, the old normal wasn’t exactly working that well for us. For the environment. For people of color. For the LGBTQIA community. For so many.
So what will we come back to?
Quite simply, the spaces that encompass where our lives happen—the places where we heal, where we work, where we learn, where we gather, museums, theatres, playgrounds, schools, sports facilities, stadiums, civic centers, libraries, concert halls, outdoor festivals—all the places that perhaps we took for granted before, are now places filled with nostalgia. As we re-enter these spaces, let us mandate that they be healthier and safer, but importantly also more inclusive, more equitable—DESIGN FOR HUMANITY.
The power of our collective energy is more important than ever, and we should and will consider how we function as a global design community and how we hold strong to those foundational values. The spaces we envision and create, envelop and contain those values and this time requires a broadened vocabulary of collaboration. One where we are open to learning, expanding our societal and world views, and maintaining a through-line of equity and humanity in all the work we do.
Design and design strategies can develop the tools we need to create our safer spaces. As we head into the future and the inevitable aftermath of this global crisis, public and commercial interiors will be looked at through a new lens. Within interior design, there will be more of an emphasis on the way that people move within a space and how that enables them to interact.
Health, well-being, and wellness, must be at the forefront, and our interior spaces and the furniture, fabrics, and materials will be held to and regulated at much higher standards. It must be reinforced that no matter the neighborhood we live in, no matter where we exist socioeconomically, no matter our race, gender, or background, we all deserve to live with these fundamental design values and with DIGNITY.
Designers have always put humans first, and in a post pandemic world, humans and their safety and well-being are of paramount importance. And for now, for next, and for always, design will do what design does best, support and uplift humanity and culture. Design is indeed the business of life. Now more than ever, the world requires what design so abundantly endows—grace, civility, compassion, clarity, connection, common sense, empathy, well-being, comfort, healing, hope, and EQUITY.
We have to stand together as humans dedicated to the betterment of our society. Let us continue to be a force for good in this world and take responsibility individually and collectively for envisioning and enacting change, progress, and JUSTICE.
Design is forever an act of optimism, and we can little afford in our activism to not be optimistic about our collective future.
All my best wishes to you for peace, safety, good health, and well-being. Stay hopeful and stay strong.
In response to our rapidly changing world, IIDA brings you a design-focused dialogue on the effects of a global crisis. Watch the sixth webinar in the series today.
How are firms and vendors adapting design, sourcing, and production methodologies to build resiliency? IIDA and a panel of manufacturers, product designers, and interior designers met virtually to discuss the impact the pandemic has had on our industry. The discussion took a look at the effects that the current state of affairs has had on the typologies of products and their production methods, supply chain systems, and design needs.
This webinar is registered for 1 IDCEC HSW CEU. To learn how to earn your CEU credit, visit IIDA.org for more information.
In response to our rapidly changing world, IIDA brings you a design-focused dialogue on the effects of a global crisis. Watch the sixth webinar in the series today.
What will the workplace of the future look like?
Watch IIDA Executive Vice President and CEO Cheryl S. Durst, Hon FIIDA, and a panel of design experts discuss the changing landscape of workplace design as they examine health and wellness concerns, shifting floorplans and floorplates, collaborative spaces, workplace arrangement, remote working, and shifting culture. This thoughtful group shares their insight in an open dialogue on adaptability and new possibilities for creative expression in the workplace.
This webinar is registered for 1 IDCEC HSW CEU. To learn how to earn your CEU credit, visit IIDA.org for more information.
James Lee, Director of Design, Hospitality, LEO A DALY, Los Angeles
Margaret McMahon, Senior Vice President and Global Director, Wimberly Interiors, New York
Meg Prendergast, IIDA, Principal, The Gettys Group, Chicago
The next webinar in the series, Product Design and Manufacturing: Change and Adaptability,will take place on May 7, 2020, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Central. Register today.
This post was contributed by Jen Levisen, communications director at Mortarr.
IIDA and AIA Chicago kicked off the second season of their Designers & Architects Talk series on February 11. First up, a conversation between IIDA Executive Vice President and CEO Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA, and Lauren Rottet, FIIDA, FAIA, a celebrated interior designer with over 60 million square feet of built design.
The 2020 season of the Designers & Architects Talk series kicked off on February 11 at IIDA Headquarters with a fireside chat between Cheryl S. Durst and celebrated interior architect Lauren Rottet—or as Durst introduced her, “the Patron Saint of Badassery.”
Rottet is the first woman to be elevated to the College of Fellows for both AIA and IIDA. Her furniture and product designs have won four gold medals for Best of NeoCon and three Good Design Awards from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. As Durst put it, Rottet just has, “all the things.”
“So, how did a nice girl from Waco, Texas, end up with an architecture degree?” Durst asked.
Lauren Rottet, FIIDA, FAIA, image courtesy of Seymour Collective
“When I was growing up [in Waco], all you could really do was go to church and play outside,” said Rottet. “So, while I did a little bit of the church thing, I also played in the rocks and mud, building houses for the horned toads and frogs I’d catch outside.” From there, her family moved to Houston, where frogs and mud were limited and she eventually turned to art.
Rottet ended up enrolling in the University of Texas at Austin to be a doctor—“Thank God I didn’t do that!”—but found herself strongly drawn to art and architecture. After graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1980, she began her career in San Francisco, where she practiced with the accomplished residential design firm Fisher Friedman Associates. She then relocated to Chicago to join Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and focused on high-rise office design. Her work with SOM took her back to Houston, where she was the senior designer on several significant high-rise buildings, museums, and planning projects.
When the building boom stopped, Rottet focused her creative energies on interiors and was asked by SOM to start an interiors practice in Los Angeles. After successfully building that practice, Rottet and several SOM partners joined forces to create the architecture and interiors firm Keating Mann Jernigan Rottet. Soon, the partners joined Daniel Mann Johnson & Mendenhall (DMJM) to expand their practice further. Rottet was principal-in-charge of the interiors practice DMJM Rottet for 14 years. In 2008, she left to form the privately held, WBE-certified, Rottet Studio.
With a team of architects and designers she has worked with for as many as 25 years, Rottet Studio has grown into an international architecture and design firm with an extensive portfolio of corporate and hospitality projects for the world’s leading companies and brands. With offices in Houston, Los Angeles, and New York, Rottet Studio is not just Rottet’s body of work, but a reflection of the woman herself.
“Home,” she told Durst, “is where the dogs are, so Houston—and they don’t like to travel. Houston is where I was raised, and my family is there, so I moved back.” However, Rottet had always wanted to work in New York, so when she started Rottet Studio, she opened a New York office. After purchasing a George Nelson-designed home in Montauk, she now calls New York home, too.
“The true definition of design is that you create a solution; you create a something that has not existed before.”
— Lauren Rottet, FIIDA, FAIA
With design studio offices across the country, a portfolio that leaves no sector untouched, and an award-winning line of furnishings including case goods, seating, tables, and lighting, how does Rottet measure success these days? “Hotels measure success every day, instantaneously,” she said, “and their ROI is directly related to the design and how well the hotel works.”
Rottet cites her work on The Surrey Hotel in New York City’s Upper East Side, her second hotel project ever, as a standard-bearer for success in her mind. “It was ranked the number one hotel in New York for every year the first ten years it was around, so I think that constitutes success,” she said.
“I never separated office design, hotels, this or that,” Rottet said when asked about embracing the blurring of design sectors. “The world separates us, wants to categorize us. “When we interview for office space, I show them as much of our hotel work as I do our office work,” she added. “Offices are becoming a lot of fun.”
Photo by: Robo Aerial
Rottet also noted that it’s an exciting time for the hospitality industry, citing thriving social hubs within hotels. “When Ace Hotel built their Social Hub, it was where everyone hung out, and the hotel became the social hub of the city, and it went viral,” she said.
Durst agreed: “It was the moment when hotels became not for guests only, but the neighborhood, becoming the neighborhood’s living room. We’re looking at that in Chicago’s Fulton Market now, where everyone feels like they have access to those public spaces.”
“Design is about the connectivity,” says Rottet, bringing up the Hoxton in Chicago, which has become well-known for its coworking environment.
So how has Rottet managed to do “all the things” so gracefully over the years?
“It is really hard,” Rottet admits. “You look back and think, wow, I should probably have spent more time doing this or that, but I truly believe failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is a part of success. The beauty of what we do is that we are learning every day, and we learn from both our mistakes and our failures.”
Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA, and Lauren Rottet, FIIDA, FAIA. Photo by: Robo Aerial
“People always talk about what’s going to change, what something or someplace will look like in 10, 20, or 50 years, but,” Durst asked Rottet, “What will endure about design?”
“A professor once told me if I recognized what I was doing, I’m not designing,” she says. “The true definition of design is that you create a solution; you create something that has not existed before. Design is pushing the edges to better society with the tools you are making.”
Join us in Chicago for the upcoming Designers & Architects Talk event, New Design Firms Changing the Face of Chicago, on April 14, 2020.
Advance tickets are required for all talks. Visit designerstalk.eventbrite.com to purchase tickets and to see for full schedule details. Discounts are available for IIDA and AIA members, and a limited number of free student seats will be made available for each session. A series ticket is available for a seat at all four sessions.
For each talk, attendees will be able to obtain either 1 AIA-approved LU or 1 IDCEC-approved CEU.
A special thanks to our 2020 Designers & Architects Talk sponsors:
IIDA | Design Matters 