....... No matter who you are, what you look like, where you're from, or who you love, you were the 'IN' crowd

The first-ever Global Inclusion Reception (EV321) of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) was held during its national convention in Chicago on June 27, 2014 at the Hafele Chicago Showroom. Here are my three takeaways from the event:

1. It is possible for a diverse group of creative organizations to come together in fellowship.
2. Humanitarian issues, like the most recent need for rebuilding after category 5 typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), are global operations that require a spirit of communal unity, because no one is exempt from experiencing natural disasters.
3. "No matter who you are, what you look like, where you're from, or who you love," architecture and design can be a profession where you are part of the 'IN' crowd.

Members of the US Whitehouse delivered enlightening and inspiring messages about diversity and inclusion, from Billy Dec who's a Presidential-Appointee to the Whitehouse Asian-American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), to US Ambassador John Maisto...   US Ambassador John Maisto (ret) "A really great talk too Billy Dec. Inspirational -Diversity Rocks," shares Immediate Past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Angela Brady PPRIBA FRIAI FRIAS FRSA FAIA FRIAC BIID Ph.D, who was in attendance. She further mentions after meeting Ambassador Maisto at the event, "It was a pleasure meeting such an enlightened man on great humanitarian issues." It was a showcase of diversity in all of its forms where official partners of the AIA Diversity and Inclusion came together for an evening of fellowship. The evening's programmed presentations were woven together by Master of Ceremonies, Kyle Hillman, that started with... AIA Diversity Council (Co-Chair): Wendy Ornelas, FAIA NOMA (National President): Kathy Dixon AIA, NOMA, LEED AP, NCARB Arquitectos (immediate Past-President): Juan Gabriel Moreno, AIA[/caption] Other multicultural professional organizations participated in celebration of diversity... Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)-USA (President): James Karl Fischer RIBA, AIA, PhD American Society of Interior Designers (CEO): Randy W. Fiser LA.IDEA | DC (Co-Chair): Jeannette (Gigi) Soto
LA.IDEA | DC: Juan Carlos Alvarez Tiffany C. Millner, AIA, NOMA from the AIA Diversity Council board shared the 40th Anniversary exhibit of Chicago Women in Architecture in the Chicago Architecture Foundation.[/caption] Members of the LGBT community as well as another official partner of the AIA Diversity and Inclusion, Out & Equal, transformed the Hafele showroom using multimedia and ambience that made the evening magical. Multimedia Installations by Troy Larsen[/caption] Which quickly became a hit and encouraged interaction among guests. Guests interacting with the installations.[/caption] And lastly, the celebration had a humanitarian component. Led by collaborators from the Leapfrog Project, there was a silent auction and raffle to benefit the rebuilding efforts in the Philippines after its central cities were decimated by category 5 typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). Leapfrog Project Collaborators Melissa Sterry (Design Scientist) and Enrique Otarola (Orem Foundation) announce the winners of the silent auction and raffle. (Image credit: Chris Vaughn)

Rockit Ranch's restaurant Sunda where Billy Dec is CEO and Founder, was one of the donors to the Leapfrog Project's silent auction that night.
Some collaborators of the Leapfrog Project with Billy Dec: (L-R: Mitchell Obstfeld, Melissa Sterry, Billy Dec, Lira Luis, Enrique Otarola, Romeo Santos)

Check out the rest of the event photos. (All images and videos courtesy of Lester Scaife, unless otherwise noted.)

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Rebuilding as a Redefining Moment

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them”. ~Aristotle

As an architect, most of my experiences are heavily rooted on learning from direct experience, a philosophy of education I embraced since joining Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin more than sixteen years ago. At Taliesin I learned about architecture through building, using my own hands, from mixing concrete for a desert masonry wall to mimicking processes in nature as sources for design. The experience revealed the learning process as a redefining moment about the built environment particularly when we had to rebuild a wall several times due to mishaps.

A few weeks ago I came full circle with this philosophy when I participated in Thos. Moser’s Maine Event as one of eight architects and interior designers chosen to experience a condensed Customer-In-Residence Program. Thos. Moser, a company known for fine wood furniture pieces and craftsman of chairs for five living US Presidents and the Pope, teamed me up with their master craftsman, Teak, like the wood, to build a designer table worthy of being an heirloom.

Planks of Cherry wood

Building the Wing Hall Table started with selecting lumber from the stacks at Rough Mill. It was like a spectacle of spiritual specification when I handpicked the cherry lumber with the right grain pattern that would breathe life into the table. The two parallel cathedral grain patterns meeting at the middle of the plank would portray the abstractions of my parallel architectural trajectories. This would be the story it would celebrate, I told myself.

Image by Thos. Moser

When I played with the power sander like an unsupervised kid in a playground, it became a moment of reflection and repose. The master craftsman had me repeat the process of power sanding until the table surface felt almost silky smooth to touch. It made me recall that masonry wall I had to rebuild at Taliesin several times and what that meant for me as an architect. By the time we completed the table, I knew every dowel I installed in the joint intimately, and had molded the surface edge profile like a sculptor to a sculpture.

There was also an unmistakeable bond formed with my shop mates as a result of building together, which in retrospect, was also present when I built and rebuilt with the Taliesin Fellowship.

As I looked at the parallel grain patterns on the table surface, now glowing in natural luster after I airbrushed it with oil, an abstraction of images appeared in my mind. They were like ripples of water washing over land and yet the beauty of its patterns only became apparent after a heavy blow of pressurized oil against its surface. At the culmination of the crafting of this heirloom, global news spread like wildfire that the strongest storm to hit the earth made landfall in the Philippines, where I’m also licensed as an architect. It became a redefining moment with a metaphorical message that in rebuilding, there is a reason for hope, because the beauty of the unknown is waiting to be revealed, like wood grain patterns glowing in natural luster. It’s time to transform.

Instead of keeping the Wing Hall Table for my personal collection, Thos. Moser and I (in coordination with White Good) have decided to donate this one-of-a-kind signature furniture to ALLL’s upcoming crowd funding campaign that would support a rebuilding project in connection with Typhoon Haiyan.

Our upcoming rebuilding project

Wing Hall Table. Image from Thos. Moser website

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From Metropolis Magazine POV: Social Primer for Practice and Projects

Architect Lira Luis dishes about KINetic, a social media platform designed for architectural project collaborations.

Read it today in Metropolis Magazine's "Point of View"

Social Primer for Practice and Projects

Image by Kingspan and Think

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The Twelve Days of Christmas with Architects: Day 10

On the tenth day of Christmas, by a cove there to see,
ten LED Lightings

Alegra Restaurant. Photo from retail design blog

Restaurant in Singapore. Photo from yupiu

Photo from aliimg

Photo from vizualizeus

Photo by fibreled

nine Hand-drawn Sketching,

Sketch by Renzo Piano. Image from pritzker.com

Sketch by Daniel Libeskind. Image from e-architect.co.uk

Sketch by Tadao Ando. Image from e-architect.co.uk

Sketch by Rafael Vinoly. Image from e-architect.co.uk

Sketch by Santiago Calatrava. Image from archidialog

Sketch by Frank Lloyd Wright. Image from artinfo

Sketch by Norman Foster. Image from demic

Sketch by Zaha Hadid. Image from e-architect.co.uk

This is my own sketch. I did this during the time when I was living at Taliesin in Spring Green, WI. Circa 1997. Image courtesy of Atelier Lira Luis, LLC. See more by clicking this link.

eight Edgy Buildings,

Centre Pompidou France by Shigeru Ban and and Jean de Gastine Architectes with Gumuchdjian Architects

Bilbao Arena by Idom UK. Photo from e-architect

New York by Frank Gehry. Photo from smartbomb

Turning Torso by Santiago Calatrava. Photo from arcabhijeet

Maxxi by Zaha Hadid. Photo from arcspace

CCTV by Rem Koolhaas. Photo from architecture.about

Oslo Opera House by Snohetta

Absolute Towers by MAD Architects. Photo by also.kottke

seven Modern Ceilings,

Ceiling design by Office dA. Photo from Lostateminor.com

Photo from Demagz.com

Ceiling design by Liam Hopkins. Photo from Homedcr.com

Ceiling design by Richard Rogers. Photo from Chictip.com

Ceiling design by Source. Photo from Chictip.com

Ceiling design by Aidlin Darling Design. Photo from Chictip.com

Ceiling design in Slavonice. Photo from Hoary.org

six Archi Sayings,  

"Life is very fleeting. It’s important to be gentle and optimistic. We look behind and think what we’ve done in this life has been good. It was simple; it was modest. Everyone creates their own story and moves on. That’s it. I don’t feel particularly important. What we create is not important. We’re very insignificant." 

-  Oscar Niemeyer

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."

-  R.Buckminster Fuller

"A great building, in my opinion, must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.”

-  Louis Kahn

"Architecture has always been as much about the event that takes place in a space as about the space itself."

-  Bernard Tschumi

"Never talk to a client about architecture...He will not understand what you have to say about architecture most of the time."

-  Mies van der Rohe

"A great architect is not made by way of a brain nearly so much as he is made by way of a cultivated, enriched heart."

                                                                                                - Frank Lloyd Wright

five Wall Claddings,

Designwall™ 1000 by Kingspan. Boston Convention Center building by Rafael Vinoly Architects PC. Photo from Kingspan website.

Parklex Timber Cladding by Parklex. Vantone Center building in Tianjin, China. Photo by Nathaniel McMahon.

Porcelanosa Butech Products and Ventilated Facade Systems. Photo by Porcelanosa Butech.

Ceramic Tiles of Italy's Energy-efficient Exterior Porcelain Facades. Wilkinson Office/Warehouse building by Michael P. Johnson. Photo courtesy of Michael P. Johnson.

NOW Cladding by Crossville. Los Gatos library in California by Noll & Tam Architects. Photo from Architizer website.

four Architects,

"The Modern Architecture Game". It is a board game produced by Next Architects where players
"can test their knowledge about the (four) greatest architects, their famous buildings, and legendary quotes as they make their way around the board to win the game." Photo from Materialicious. (Pictured from left to right: Frank Lloyd Wright, Rem Koolhaas, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe)

three Black Pens,

two Lego Sets,

Fallingwater Lego Set. Photo from Lego website.

Farnsworth House Lego Set. Photo from Lego website.

and mold Plywood for an Eames Tree.

Christmas tree made by molding plywood chair legs by Charles and Ray Eames.
Circa 1946. Photo from Library of Congress website.

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