ARCHITECT

Thomas Robinson, founder of Lever Architecture, discusses the firm's Framework building, slated to be the first timber high-rise in the United States.

Benton Johnson of SOM in Chicago discusses the intricate and practical steps it will to take to make timber structures a reality.

Lucas Epp of StructureCraft Builders describes the science behind one of the newest mass timber products on the market, and how it could help change the face of timber construction.

What must architects know about the different energy codes—ASHRAE 90.1, IECC, and IgCC—that projects and certification programs mandate? Building-performance expert Kim Shinn and architect and code expert Maureen Guttman distill the key points.

Can—and should—regulation raise the bar for building performance nationwide? Code experts Cindy Davis and Steven Orlowski discuss the obstacles and strategies.

Skylar Tibbits knows his way around the fourth dimension—time, that is. In 2013, Tibbits, the head of MIT's Self-Assembly Lab, coined the term "4D printing" to describe a key area of his research in programmable material technologies, wherein materials are imbued with characteristics that allow them to change shape over time. A trained architect, Tibbits has previously worked for Zaha Hadid Architects, Asymptote Architecture, and Point B Design. Today, he co-directs the Self-Assembly Lab, runs his own design and research firm, SJET, and is a research scientist in MIT's Department of Architecture, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate studios. We chatted with Tibbits about the future of the architecture and design profession, and how failure should be viewed as invaluable, and even welcomed, in the pursuit of innovation.

In a study lost to the annals of architectural history, 40 of the 20th-century's most prominent architects were invited over the course of a few weekends in the late 1950s to the University of California, Berkeley, where they were evaluated for their presumed creative genius. The researchers, from the school's Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR), wanted to know how factors in a person's life and environment shaped their creative aptitude. Particularly intrigued by architects for their mix of design and business savvy, the researchers attempted to get inside the minds of Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, FAIA, and others. The study received significant media attention at the time it was undertaken, but little on it was ever published, and what it determined about creativity in general and in architecture specifically was unearthed only recently.

In his book, "The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study" (The Monacelli Press, 2016), Pierluigi Serraino, AIA, revisits the study and its implications. We talked with the Alameda, Calif.–based architect and author about what he learned during his research, and whether a similar attempt at understanding the minds of the world's leading architects could be executed today.

We sat down with Gretchen Pfaehler, AIA, the chair of Washington, D.C.'s Historic Preservation Review Board and the senior preservation architect at Beyer Blinder Belle. The Wisconsin native talks about how she became a preservation architect and the challenges and opportunities in her role.

We talked with the founder of global design firm Gensler about the one skill that many architects lack: The ability to run a business. Art Gensler, FAIA, was 30 years old when he and a small team formally opened up shop as M. Arthur Gensler Jr. and Associates, Inc., on Jan. 1, 1966. Since then, the firm has grown to more than 5,000 employees across 46 offices globally. Gensler discusses how he learned business as an architect and shares some advice for emerging practitioners looking to strike out on their own.

We sat down with Frank Gehry, FAIA, while he was in Washington, D.C., to receive the 2016 Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy Through the Arts. In addition to his architectural practice, the Los Angeles–based architect leads the design-tech solutions firm Gehry Technologies, and he was recently the subject of a biography by Pulitzer-Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry (Knopf, 2015). We talked with Gehry about his career, his impressions of the industry, and his advice for emerging practitioners.