On the occasion of World Architecture Day, Martha Thorne, Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, spoke with Jeanne Gang about the relationships between individuals, their communities, and the environment.
“Martha Thorne: Your firm, Studio Gang, builds in many places, not just your hometown of Chicago. When you get a new project, how do you begin, especially when it is in a new city or country? How do you tackle a new challenge?
Jeanne Gang: I think every project has a different context, different details, is in a different place, so there’s always a lot of research at the beginning to get a sense of what will be relevant for that particular project. We bring ideas to the project, of course, but it also talks back to us and it’s our job to listen and dig down into it – and it is usually then that we uncover something exciting to explore further.
Thorne: Our theme for World Architecture Day is being a good neighbor, which entails, as you mentioned, listening to the client and understanding the site. What type of things do you tend to focus on during this listening process?
Gang: What’s going on in the world is an important context. It’s a base level and from there you can get into things that are particular to a specific place, for example, the climate and the people. It’s very important to really reach out to as many stakeholders as possible, especially community leaders, and to find how to create a synergy between the project and what they think about their neighborhood. These are the people who live there and who know that place. As architects, we must listen to them and try to understand as much as we can before we create something permanent in a community.”