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Note from the Editor - Naomi Horowitz

Get to Know a Member in 5 Questions - Hana Mori Böttger

What You Can Do to Help Women in Architecture and Design - Naomi Horowitz

Official Business - Gloria Kim and Naomi Horowitz

Programs for 2016 - Carol Mancke

Film Review: Lutah - Naomi Horowitz

Membership - Sharon Chio

I am a Californian who had every intention to become a filmmaker when leaving high school, but somehow in college got turned on to structural engineering. These days I teach integrated structural materials, structural design and architecture courses as Assistant Professor at University of San Francisco. I'm the director of the Architecture & Community Design (ARCD), Architectural Engineering and ARCD Honors programs. I love hanging out with students every day, using hands-on experimental techniques and community engagement to provide them as rich an education as possible. Teaching is Believing!

1. What book has changed how you look at the world?

The single most influential book in my life so far has been The Catcher in the Rye, in particular the concept of a person becoming a tiny bit different with every observation, every experience, no matter how small.

2. How has someone’s mentoring made a difference in your life or career?

When I was in engineering school I became very interested in earthen structural materials, especially adobe. By some miracle the most prominent adobe structural researcher, Dr. Marcial Blondet, happened to be Principal Development Engineer at the very same institution and absolutely took me under his wing. He has continued to mentor and advise me to this day. I also needed to find a bit of funding for my thesis project, and not exactly finding much support for earthen material research, decided to apply to the American Concrete Institute for funds. It so happened that Dr. Fred Webster, California's "go to" structural engineer for seismic retrofits to historic adobe structures, was on the committee reviewing these applications. As he later told me, "every application looked the same - and then there was yours!" I did not get the funding, but Fred was amused enough by my nerve at applying to the ACI for this funding that he contacted me himself and promptly hired me to be his research assistant. His tireless mentorship of me continued until his passing late last year. Without him, and Marcial, I am quite sure my life would have turned out quite differently, possibly with less joy and less "playing with mud". I try every day to give back their mentorship to my students.

3. If civilization were to collapse tomorrow, what one object would you most want to have?

My violin, and I would hope to sneak in a bow as well! I have played violin for long enough that it is connected to my breathing and heartbeat. Also, if the collapse of civilization implies no people to talk to, the violin would be another voice I could listen to.

4. In a parallel life, what would be your line of work?

I wouldn't mind being an astronaut! But there are days when my current life is pretty far out!

5. What has changed since you started in your field?

In my infancy in the industry about 15 years ago, it still seemed to me that the work of the architect or engineer was rooted in an apprenticeship-style system, learning the ropes about building construction and design, and communicating these decisions clearly. Just in the last decade I have noticed two major changes. The first is not good: the breakdown of mentorship. Because we are surrounded, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, by the high-tech industry with a very different mentality toward and turnover rate of tools and products, we see both employees and employers expecting shorter and shorter commitments in either direction. On the other hand, the other change I have noticed is very interesting and quite positive: a move toward whole-systems design thinking. It is becoming more and more apparent that every design decision, from whether to build or not all the way to material choices and operational resource costs have such great impact on our health and the survival of our planet, that all design professionals must consider the tradeoffs associated with their decisions. I think this kind of global thinking is flexing a nimbleness muscle which design professionals generally seem well-suited for. We shall see...

We have a variety of events and talks planned for 2016:

Galen Cranz will talk about her new book Ethnography for Designers (Routledge, London, 2016) in the evening on May 9th. The venue is still to be confirmed, but is likely to be in UC Berkeley’s Wurster Hall.

On July 12, we will be hosted by the San Francisco International Airport in-house design and project management women’s group for a talk about the airport's approach to design, an introduction to some of their current projects and possibly a tour of a newly completed area in the terminal.

For August, are working on offering a hands-on making workshop at the Crucible in Oakland, hopefully in conjunction with a girls youth group.

We also have a number of other programs in the works, so keep an eye on the calendar on our website and expect email updates from the Program Coordinators.

Have you heard of Lutah Maria Riggs? I had not until Wendy Bertrand offered to share a documentary about her with the OWA+DP. How did an architect whose work had such range and sensitivity, who pushed forward the evolution of the Mission Revival style and then the emergence of a distinctively Californian modernism, not become a household name, when we have all heard of Maybeck and Eichler?

Wendy cannily began our gathering on Saturday by asking us to think about how and when we became aware of the existence of women architects. The answer seemed to vary by generation, but also based on individual circumstances. There were members who became aware of women architects through female professors, through practicing architects that provided them with a role model, and through activism in founding organizations such as the OWA+DP, as well as one who learned of women architects through a book: From Tipi to Skyscraper (Doris Cole, I press incorporated, Boston, MA, 1973).

Many founding and long-time members were present, including two who had met Riggs themselves. Anne Sullivan remembered her as an older woman wearing a red wool winter coat on a hot summer day. Mui Ho sought Riggs out because she was interested in her live-work spaces, which were a novel unit type at the time.

The film itself gave an overview of Lutah Maria Riggs’ life, career and body of work. Santa Barbara, California, would not be the place it is today without the work she did during her lifetime (1896-1984). The beauty of her drawings and the resulting buildings both testify to her great talent, and she was well-known locally. The Lobero Theater, her best-known building, is a landmark and active theater today.

Various members in attendance expressed wishes for more consideration of certain aspects of Riggs’ work. Of course, a one-hour documentary cannot be exhaustive. However, I noticed that some description was given of the firm of George Washington Smith, where Riggs worked for many years, while none was given for Riggs’ own practice, once she branched out on her own. Did she have employees, or was she a one-woman shop? Similarly, other members would have like to see more context for Riggs’ career. Did she have any contact with Julia Morgan, for example?

I appreciated the variety of people interviewed, including historians and clients, who gave a range of perspectives both on the work itself, and on Riggs as a woman and an architect. In general, a preoccupation with women’s appearance is not helpful, but hers seems to have been eccentric enough to warrant the attention. Because Riggs seems to have been a rather private person, the film had more difficulty accessing her inner life. This may have compounded our culture’s tendency to privilege the male gaze, even in a film which should have focused on Rigg’s own gaze. One person interviewed first referred to Riggs as the “muse” of her employer (when she was clearly a creative force herself) and later called her “mysterious.” However, this was just one off note in an otherwise warm and thoughtful professional biography. Few films of this sort exist, and they are needed to build the foundation of the history of women architects.

As a take-away, here are a few questions for further thought, prompted by the movie and our gathering:
- How has the generation you belong to shaped your experience as a woman architect/designer?
- In the tension between personal life and career, Riggs explicitly chose career. What decisions have you made as you have tried to resolve this tension?
- Do we ourselves have any unconscious sexism that causes us to assess other women and their work differently than we assess men?
- Why is the history of women architects less well known? To what extent is this due to a lack of attention from history, and to what extent is it due to constraints that their time and circumstances placed on the scope of their work?

More information about Riggs, including a book and booklet, is available from the Lutah Maria Riggs Society, at www.lutah.org.