Bevel: Canadian Interiors Conversations

“As the nature of designing and making physical objects – particularly products for workplaces – continues to evolve, the way we approach that work needs to evolve with it,” said industrial designer Lee Fletcher this spring while announcing the launch of a new venture, called Fletcher Scott Studio, based in Toronto.

Lee is a founding partner in Fig40, a product design studio also based in Toronto and in which he is still actively involved with partner Terence Woodside. But with Fletcher Scott Studio, he is, in his own words, “looking for a pause in process, and an expansion of the liminal space between a design brief being given and the design work beginning. How can we point the juggernaut of development in a better direction, one that reworks the way we make things so we can keep making them?”

Lee’s extensive experience in both manufacturing and consulting has enabled him to take the lead in reconciling all the goals for a given project and the complex, sometimes conflicting, needs of clients, users, and the community. As a result, his work has won many international design awards and he has sat on various juries for design competitions.

In this episode of Bevel, I sit down in a rather noisy environment with Lee to explore what he is trying to do with Fletcher Scott Studio. In his own words, his goal is “to draw other voices into the process, to make the process more transparent while remaining unwavering on the goals to be achieved.” He admits this will increase time but not necessarily cost, and more importantly, “will bring greater clarity to the goals and a higher chance they’ll be met.”

We speak at length about how this will require a shift in approach and about “dismantling expectations” (client-designer, vice versa, designer-end user, etc.) into constituent parts, then reassembling them like Lego into something that works better for everyone, designer included. We unpack the sometimes thorny topic of authorship and even talk about how task chairs were essentially over-designed for people who ended up barely using them.

Lee was educated in both Canada and the U.K., achieving an MA in Industrial Design from Manchester Metropolitan University. His work centres on designing manufactured objects with empathy, using an approach that seeks to understand the broader context the object is made and used in. He is a professional member of the Association of Industrial Designers of Ontario and teaches Industrial Design at Sheridan College.

Designers have been drafting design manifestos (DM) for over a hundred years with varying degrees of success and fidelity in their professional practices. According to author Alexandra Franzen, a DM is “A written statement where you publicly declare your intentions, opinions and vision,” yet despite such a succinct characterization there appear to be gaps in understanding when it comes to the features which distinguish an exemplary DM and the function it serves (if any) in contemporary professional design practices.

These days, designers’ websites seemingly prefer short generic statements that mix their approach to design with lists of technical aptitudes and team biographies. Is this a more client-focused mission statement as opposed to a manifesto? What is the difference between them? Have manifestos been co-opted into what is really a branding exercise with the intent to sell but somehow still come off looking like they are deeply caring? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

In this episode of Bevel we meet up with Bulent Akman during Clerkenwell Design Week in London to unpack the current state of DMs and try to set the record straight on their proper form, function and value. We discuss some of the design industry’s most influential DMs by heavyweights such as Adolf Loos, Walter Gropius, Dieter Rams and Jasper Morrison, and then examine the particulars of what a DM should include, who should write it and when.

Bulent is an instructor and communications specialist with over 20 years of experience teaching digital and integrated marketing communications. He recently led a course in writing design manifestos for the School of Form, part of SWPS University in Warsaw, Poland.

Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in Toronto has on some level developed a relationship with public transit. But then there are those who have spent a really significant amount of time in the city, someone like me, who has spent their whole life here – was born here, grew up here, has gone through the various stages of life here – those people have an intimate relationship with public transit, specifically the TTC: we develop associations with details such as going through turnstiles, sounds and smells of waiting on platforms, the feeling of subway seats, different tile colours of the stations, and on and on. And it is important to point out that these are all design elements.

Poetics aside, the one thing all of us engaged in this relationship agree on is that public transit needs to be better, and we need more of it. Which is why any time there are announcements about investments being made in transit infrastructure it is met with enthusiasm. Hence the excitement that is growing around the Metrolinx Ontario Line, for which construction officially started earlier this year, and why I reached out to Greg Parsons, because it is he and his team at Dexd that are responsible for the DS-09 Subway Design Standard – an important sounding document that will have a serious impact on our future experiences with the Ontario Line.

On this episode of Bevel, we discuss how Dexd got involved with Metrolinx to develop the Subway Design Standard; what some of the main interior design features will be; and how an interior designer fits into a project as large and with so many moving parts as public transit.

Greg has over 25 years of interior design experience across Canada and globally, with deep specialization in commercial mixed-use, healthcare, and transportation sectors. An active educator and mentor, committed to helping develop and grow the next generation of designers, Greg has an innate curiosity about human behaviour and an enduring belief in our collective responsibility to transform space that positively impacts and shapes our experiences.

There was a time in the mid- to late-20th century when arts critics held serious power in swaying the consumption habits of the general public. Film and music were two realms in the popular press where this was particularly notable, with critics such as Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert for film or Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau for music writing reviews and essays in publications that many believed could “make or break a career.”

Then as the early 21st century saw the internet unleash a tidal wave of content, where value is measured by clicks, criticism morphed from an elite field of intellectual exploration by a small number of knowledgeable experts to a democratic phenomenon where analysis is aggregated and averaged, and the lines seem blurred between true expertise and the random opinions of the masses.

In this episode of Bevel, I sit down with Ian Chodikoff for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of architecture criticism in the popular media, and touch on topics such as what it looked like in the age of Kael, Ebert and Bangs; whether the internet has democratized or diluted criticism; what is working now with the discipline, what is not, and what it has to do to not only survive but be relevant. Ultimately, as the profession of criticism continues to evolve and journalists struggle to find a place, we examine whether there is a future for professional architecture criticism.

Ian Chodikoff is an architect and leader in the culture of placemaking whose career includes teaching, writing, exhibitions and research. He regularly consults with municipalities, real estate developers and various cultural organizations. Ian was a former Executive Director for the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and editor for Canadian Architect magazine. He is a Board member of two associations, one of which provides affordable housing. Ian is currently guiding communications and business development for a Toronto architecture firm.

There is ‘saying,’ and there is ‘doing.’ Both are important, and in many cases one can’t happen without the other. But eventually the latter must happen, otherwise the former has been abandoned and rendered meaningless.

We all saw the slow emergence of conversations about diversity in representation kicked into high gear during the summer of 2020, as companies and organizations queued up to give their official Statements on Diversity and Inclusion in the face of intense scrutiny coming from social upheavals. And deservedly so, for while Canadian workplaces may appear more diverse than ever before, that appearance belies the reality that diverse representation is commonly found at the lower end of company hierarchies, with clear gaps in positions of influence and power at senior leadership levels.

What is interesting is how design industry professionals think of themselves as having progressive and inclusive mindsets baked into the very nature of what they do. However, a homogeneity within design leadership coupled with a fear of even engaging in these conversations has slowed the acceptance of ways to increase and advance diversity. Yet the reality is, if done for the right reasons, these actions can directly impact business sustainability and ultimately its profitability.

In this episode of Bevel we sit down with Ian Rolston, founder of the design equity consultancy firm Decanthropy, to explore the myriad of complex issues imbedded in any conversation about representation in the design industry. We discuss what must happen to move the needle from talk to action, and zero in on three key areas: design education, professional practice and the role of advocacy.

Ian is a creative soul, thought leader, design professional and speaker, inspired by connecting humanity to what matters most. His insights, studio workshops and project collaborations focus clients on leading with one’s sense of humanity to inform the design process, shift thinking and transform ROI to reimagine new possibilities for the spaces we live in.

Architects and interior designers specify thousands of architectural and interior products, building materials and related goods, representing billions of dollars in sales. But how these goods and products register on the radar of creative professionals and ultimately get specified is a major part of the industry that rarely gets discussed. Design firms have both formal and informal procedures when working with product industry representatives, and like everything else these days, things are changing due to a combination of both internal and external forces.

In this episode of Bevel we sit down with George Foussias, Design Director of Interior Design at Lemay and unpack the evolving relationships between design leaders and product representatives and explore best practices for developing mutually beneficial ones. Additionally, we address industry changes when it comes to supply chain management and how firms are working with industry partners to adjust; building a community in the face of an increasingly automated transactional setting; and we touch on the topic of a “materials library” and its viability moving forward when looked at through the lens of environmental sustainability and this post-COVID trend of ditching office space.

As design director for the Toronto studio of Lemay, George draws on over 20 years of local and international experience to promote design excellence. His extensive knowledge and drive are reflected in the over 30 international design awards he has earned for is thoughtful, dynamic and engaging design solutions for the residential, entertainment and hospitality markets.

“What is Canadian architecture? The question has often been posed, with no single satisfactory response. Understandably so, as Canada is not only vast but geographically and climatically diverse across its provinces and territories,” says author Leslie Jen in the introduction to her new book, titled Canadian Architecture: Evolving a Cultural Identity.

In it, she explores several significant building projects in urban and rural environments that influence our interactions with each other and the communities in which we live, reflecting a multiplicity of architectural languages, regions, and building types seen in this country.

In this episode of Bevel we sit down with Leslie to discuss the importance of regional vernaculars and how they interconnect to create a national architectural language. We also name-drop a few architects featured in the book whose work enhances cities and landscapes across Canada’s geographically varied expanse.

But we also go beyond just geography to explore issues of growth, designing for health and aging, plus growing ecological challenges, as well as other pressing questions facing Canadian architectural firms moving into the future, such as inclusion and the effect the pandemic will have on how architects design.

Leslie Jen is an architecture and design journalist based in Toronto, where her consultancy practice includes writing, editing and curating for several design magazines, architectural firms and arts organizations. For nearly 12 years, she was the associate editor of Canadian Architect magazine. She was named a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC) in 2016.

Although we have been in the COVID trenches for what seems like an incessantly long period of time, there now appears to be light at the end of this tunnel. With vaccination rates on a speedy incline and phased re-openings across the provinces, things are slowly returning to normal.

But we’re not out of the woods yet, and even when the pandemic is officially declared over its effects will be long-lasting. Which is why we are sitting down with Johanna Hoffmann, CEO of Oomph Group, to discuss why your space planning, project management and procurement skills are urgently needed now; and what it will take to get your firm through the crisis by finding creative ways to generate revenue and other stop-gap solutions that while not necessarily permanent, will help you not only stay on your feet but continue marching on even after normalcy returns.

A creative marketing and business development leader, Johanna is known for her ability to integrate inventive marketing tactics with business development strategies to drive results for AEC firms and organizations. She has held executive marketing and business development positions with global leaders such as B+H Architects, Forrec Inc. and Stantec, where she established global marketing and BD infrastructures, devised strategic BD strategies to meet KPIs and revenue targets, and led successful market entries into Asia, the Americas and the Middle East.

“Architecture is not the result of finance capitalism but rather is finance capitalism” / “Just as architecture has helped produce finance capitalism, finance capitalism has helped produce architecture.”

Those two passages appear early in Matthew Soules’s new book, titled Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin, which serves as an indictment of how finance capitalism changes not only architectural forms, but the very nature of our cities and societies.

The impetus for this book arose from the 2008 global financial crisis, which revealed, among other things, the damage done by unchecked housing speculation. Yet in the ensuing years, says Soules, the use of architecture as an investment tool has only accelerated heightening inequality and contributed to worldwide financial instability.

We rarely consider architecture to be an important factor in contemporary economic and political debates, yet Soules – an associate professor of architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver – demonstrates how unoccupied ultra-thin pencil towers rising in our cities, or cavernous "iceberg" homes burrowing many stories below street level, function as wealth storage for the superrich, while communities around the globe are blighted by zombie and ghost urbanism, marked by unoccupied neighborhoods and abandoned housing developments, issues on which the discipline of architecture is largely mute.

From their inception, both architecture and filmmaking have been forms of representational art. The closer one looks at these respective disciplines, the more their overlapping attributes become glaringly obvious. Both manipulate time, space, movement, light, colour and sound; in the case of cinema, to reinforce the narrative of a film; and in the case of architecture, to manifest the ideas behind a design. They both engage the viewer, one by projecting moving images while the viewer is still, the other by being still while the viewer moves. Both architecture and film play an important role in influencing how we physically and imaginatively interact with the world around us.

It is these seemingly obvious correlations that then raise a multitude of questions: how is architecture and design explicitly handled as subject matter in films? What kind of content clicks with audiences? How can film technology and techniques help architects bridge the gap between representational images of their work and a qualitative perception of space and architecture?

In this episode of Bevel we tap Kyle Bergman to help explore these and similar questions. Based in New York City, Kyle founded the Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) in 2008 and serves as its festival director. He has always recognized the strong connection between architecture and film and ADFF provides a unique opportunity to educate, entertain and engage people who are passionate about the world of architecture and design.