Archi.ru:
– You are one of the most successful social housing architects in California and perhaps the United States as a whole. How did you choose this challenging specialization?
David Baker:
- It happened to some extent by accident. In the 1970s, together with a couple of fellow students, we won a competition for an energy efficient building, one of which was social housing. In the end, we only built this housing. Then it became our main job.
– Could you briefly explain how the US social housing market works? Who is financing its construction?
- There are many financial sources. Previously, architects in this area worked for the state, now in the social housing sector, commercial and non-profit companies dominate among the clients. NPOs are more common, since the construction of social housing is a difficult area that requires commitment to a super task, to its mission.
Previously, all social housing was built by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Governments sometimes do a great job at their jobs, but in my opinion it is better that they do as little as possible at all, because [much more often] they are not particularly effective.
Unfortunately, the HUD was bad at building social housing. This department did not think about the consumer, only about compliance. HUD treated architects well and paid big fees. But the buildings they commissioned had to look ugly and cheap so that taxpayers would not criticize the government for spending too much money "on the poor." Therefore, the resulting buildings were just terrible, and therefore many townspeople hated social housing.
It is surprising that conservative US President Ronald Reagan took the state away from the social housing market. He and other Republicans coined the concept of tax credits. They allow private developers to receive tax deductions in the amount of their spending on social housing projects (or the share of affordable housing in conventional residential complexes). Initially, a dollar deduction was given for about 50 cents spent because it was considered a risky transaction, it was assumed that no one would want to buy these tax credits. Now, for reasons I don't understand, the HUD is issuing a tax deduction of one dollar for one and a half dollars spent, that is, obviously, there are some additional benefits for developers.
– How are you invited to participate in the design of social housing? When do you get involved in such projects?
- In the private sector, there used to be a very close relationship between the client and the architect: each businessman usually had a circle of architects with whom he worked. Now everything has changed, and projects are distributed on a competitive basis. That is, now, if an architect wants to get a particular site, he passes the qualification selection, then sends an application, which includes an indicative budget and prospective sources of funding. In San Francisco, it is customary to submit detailed applications, which show that the architect is not only constructing the building, but also thinking through the details of its functioning, including social services.
One of the objects in the competition for which we are now participating is intended for the Chinese diaspora. Our client conceived a whole system of social services, including a kindergarten, care for the elderly, a private Chinese restaurant, where every elderly resident can have a very inexpensive lunch - get a preferential "lunch". This restaurant will recruit young people, providing opportunities for development and experience, and strengthening intergenerational bonds. Surprisingly, winning the competition depends in part on such social propositions.
How do you manage to work so diversely with such a limited budget?
- It seems to me that at some point, NGOs realized that if they build really ugly and low-quality social housing, local residents will resist their next project: “I don’t want to see these social houses anywhere near - they are terrible, and there is solid crime ! " So NGOs realized that they need to think about the consumer and take care of their reputation as a developer of clean, beautiful, always well-groomed houses. When we tour our social housing facilities, participants usually say, “We didn't know this building was social housing, it's so good. It's better than commercial!"
How do you manage it?
- We set ourselves such a goal in every project. We want to create a building - a "good neighbor": this is important for the next projects, it is part of our portfolio. Today, marketplace housing has become competitive because luxury home developers have realized that people want to live in beautiful, full-service buildings. Gradually, social housing developers decided to respect the tenants of their houses too. We also want social housing to look great, even better than market housing. Therefore, one of the competitive criteria now is the most attractive appearance of the building, created, however, within the budget. If all projects have good developers, contractors, and a range of social services, where is the difference between them? The difference lies in the attractiveness of the project. All other things being equal, the most attractive project wins the competition.
You pay great attention to designing courtyards. What is special about working with yard space for social housing?
“Patios are very important in Northern California, the weather is good, the maritime climate is mild, and we spend a lot of time outdoors. You're right, over time we started to pay more attention to designing courtyards. We plant trees on them so that they are really attractive, and the residents, walking around the yard, could hear birdsong or pick some kind of fruit. We make windows overlooking the courtyard, which is what the residents like, we also began to make open stairs so that from there you can see the courtyard when you go down or go up. It promotes a healthy lifestyle as gives you an incentive to walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator.
Now we are trying to create courtyards visible from the street. It's great when passers-by can look into the courtyard: even a glimpse of greenery is enough in this case. This openness has a positive effect on the urban environment.
Sometimes you include frescoes and sculpture in your social housing projects. How do you choose them?
- We have accumulated a variety of experience in working with works of art. In the homeless housing Richardson Apartments in the adjacent garage, a mosaic panel with giant figures of dancers was made. At the same time, the building became the frame for this mosaic, which became the main part of the courtyard. Our Union City Station Center social housing project for families includes a 5-story "Putting Roots" façade mural. The artist, Mona Caron, started off with a weed on a construction site, and then collaborated with the local community to make her mural reflect their stories, including greetings in the residents' native languages.
In addition, we partner with local art NGOs. San Francisco has a Creativity Explored gallery that supports delayed artists. We buy the rights to use their works so that the authors can receive some kind of royalties for their work, and we print them on an enlarged scale. As a result, we have the large works we need that fit into the budget. In the case of social housing, the architect does not have hundreds of thousands of dollars for art objects. You can only hope that you will have at least some money to add some art to the interior.
We have designed two small boutique hotels in Heldsburg, a town next to the "vineyard" area in northern California where many wealthy citizens have cottages. There we had a much more substantial budget for art, we were able to collaborate with a whole group of local artists who did work especially for us.
In one of your projects, you used an ornament typical of Botswana. What is the basis for this choice?
“The project was for the historically African-American area of Bayview Hill, we partnered with a committee of local residents who wanted to add 'Afrocentric' motives as a sign of respect to the African-American community. After careful research, we developed a set of colors, symbols and ornaments that created the special spirit of the place. For example, for the screens covering the windows of the first floor, we used circular ornaments that recall the South African fauna and in Botswana are used in weaving baskets, and the balcony fences were stylized as a wicker fence, which is typical for kraals - traditional South African settlements with a circular layout.
In addition to creating new buildings, you are engaged in the reconstruction of industrial facilities: for example, you have adapted a pasta factory for social housing
“The Pasta Factory is part of a new neighborhood called Tassafaronga Village that we designed to bridge the gap between residential and industrial areas. There are apartment buildings and townhouses in this quarter, and an abandoned pasta factory there was originally supposed to be demolished. We thought it would be great to preserve it and turn it into housing: as a result, we were able to reuse most of the building. This gave character to the new quarter, because when you take on a large quarter, the main challenge is not to demolish everything to zero and make a new, but superficial, building on this place. The result can be really boring. It is much more interesting to create a palimpsest or collage. Such traces of the past form wonderful cities.
The office of our bureau is also an example of the reconstruction that we carried out about 25 years ago. Some parts of this building are over 100 years old. In the 1930s –1950s, this building was a factory where labels for boxes - packaging for fruit - were designed and printed. In the past, factories were built so that workers could walk there. Now industrial enterprises have left the city center, and most of the vacated buildings have been adapted for new needs.
San Francisco strives to preserve the historic fabric of the city, and many buildings cannot be bought for demolition at all, so renovation is very common.
You use a wide range of materials in your projects. Do you have a preference?
- Most of our buildings combine cement plaster and composite façade panels made from industrial waste, sawdust and cement. In the States, we often use this material instead of wood. We paint it like wood, but in practice this material is better than wood - it does not rot, it is durable, reliable and "green".
We would like to use luxury materials everywhere, but with a budget as tight as ours, this is not possible. We are guided by the "little can do much" principle, which means that we use 20% of premium materials in the areas of the building where it matters, and 80% of inexpensive durable materials in other cases. We always make sure not to use low-quality materials, but use only practical options from cheap ones. We often use zinc and Brazil walnut to create accents and characterize the building, a type of tropical wood. Among the "luxury" materials, we like ceramic tiles and mahogany. Redwood is very expensive, but we can use more affordable deadwood.
You work a lot in such a socially important area as social housing. Do you believe that good architecture can change people?
“I think our duty is to respect the consumer and try to make the buildings as beautiful as possible. Some architects think, “This project is for the homeless. What do they know about architecture? It seems to me that signs of respect and a sense of care can be expressed through architecture. If people feel respected, they treat the building better, and the incidence of vandalism is reduced there.
But in the end, building managers are more important than architects. Taking care of the most beautiful building in the world will turn into a terrible place. Architecture matters, but not as important as some other factors.
Can California be called one of the most successful US states in creating social housing?
- California is an almost independent country. Take the Bay Area. In terms of population, it is comparable to Denmark, and in terms of GDP it will occupy the top positions in the national and world rankings. Progressive people live here - the founders of Google and Apple. This is where colossal wealth is being created, mostly in high tech. Therefore, we can afford to be more progressive - including in the field of social housing. California, especially northern California, is an amazing place.
How have your customers changed over the thirty years of your bureau's existence?
- Everything has become much more complicated aesthetically and technically. In the San Francisco Bay Area, wealth has risen and the middle class has declined. Because we are part of a large country, we have the same minimum wage - $ 15 an hour - as elsewhere, and small businesses often go broke. $ 15 an hour in California means you either live with your parents or rent a corner in your friends' living room. There is a gap between the means that people at the base of the social pyramid earn and the costs of maintaining a moderate lifestyle. This is troubling.
Another change has to do with a change in the reputation of the entire area around San Francisco. The city was a regional business center, but at some point most of the companies left it, and San Francisco began to be considered a city of the second or even third tier. In the last fifteen years, along with the boom in the technology industry, an unprecedented economic growth has begun. All of these fledgling companies were instant success and turned the Bay Area into an international economic hub. San Francisco today is one of the most interesting cities in the world. There is so much money here, it always contributes to the development of architecture. Think about
Facebook's headquarters, designed by Frank Gehry, projects like this are impossible when things go wrong.
Most of your buildings follow environmental standards. Is it difficult to manage such buildings during operation?
- The degree of difficulty depends on the customer. Our NGO customers are interested in adhering to environmental standards when operating a building, and not only when obtaining a certificate, although now being a "green" architect often means only getting certificates for their buildings. You often hear: “Oh my God, global warming! Citizens will appreciate it if we build a resource efficient building! " And five years later, the same developer says: “Why do we need to build eco-friendly buildings? We have already done this. It’s outdated, it’s unfashionable and useless.” We resist this approach.
Now, in cooperation with NGOs, we are making several very interesting objects, using different approaches to certification. This Austrian PassivHaus, as well as the Living Building Challenge, developed in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, is the most advanced energy efficiency standard. To get it, it is necessary to measure the performance of the building during its operation.
In contrast to the rest of the United States, where the Republican, who heads the Committee on Environmental Protection in the Senate, denies the existence of global warming [Jim Inhof - approx. Archi.ru], in California we recognize the reality of global warming and the need for appropriate action. The nationwide goal of building only zero-electricity homes by 2020 is very ambitious, but worth striving for. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has formulated the 2030 Challenge, which stipulates that by 2030 all architectural firms must measure the performance of their buildings in operation, not predict it. We are one of the firms that have made this commitment, which means that we are now trying to track the performance of our buildings in the process of real use, which is not an easy task.
How exactly do you measure the efficiency of your houses during operation?
- We design apartment buildings. The main difficulty was that previously it was impossible to obtain information about the electricity consumption of each tenant, since they were considered personal data. Now the provision of information to the homeowner from the receipt of payment for electricity is one of the points of the lease agreement. There has been a revolution in the measurement system, a lot of "smart" meters have appeared. Previously, we could only track data for common areas, which did not provide a complete picture. Now we can measure the energy consumption of the building as a whole.
You receive over a dozen awards every year - from national and regional associations, government organizations and specialized magazines. Which of the awards are more meaningful to you?
- We are not working for prizes. Awards are all about endorsement, which is great in itself, but we don't have an ardent ambition to win architectural prizes. National awards are more meaningful to us than local ones - for example, the Urban Land Institute award, which is generally international. We have been honored with this award three times. The jury considers not only the architectural solution, but the project as a whole: the influence of the building on the urban environment, the ways of financing its development and construction, as well as its external appearance.
Your website states that you host charity parties. What are these activities?
- We hold several of these parties a year to raise money for various NGOs. We choose an area of activity - NGOs that develop cycling or farming in the city, are engaged in street safety or human rights activities in the field of social housing - and we invite everyone. Parties are held in our office, we collect money through the sale of entrance tickets or through a lottery, we accept donations for our signature cocktail.
What projects besides social housing are you involved in?
- We design several luxury hotels, interiors. For example, one of our customers is a company engaged in manual coffee roasting, for which we have developed the design of a cafe and a coffee kiosk. We just completed work on such an object at Facebook's headquarters in the Frank Gehry building. We develop urban planning projects where we focus on affordable housing. Including for large areas like the 4.8 hectare area in Asheville, North Carolina. Such large projects include interaction with the local community, which is extremely interesting for us.
– How did you know you wanted to be an architect?
“I think my father inspired me. He was a farmer who dropped out of school in ninth grade. He lived in Michigan and had to ride 16 km on horseback to school. Sometimes the snow was so deep that even on horseback it was impossible to get there, and it was necessary to equip the sled - as in Russia.
He was self-taught and achieved a lot in self-education. At some point, after reading the autobiography of Frank Lloyd Wright, his father began to design the Yusonian homes, which he invented in the early 1950s, a variant of "passive" housing. These houses were wonderful. So it turned out that I grew up in a very modern house. My parents have always supported me in my desire to study architecture, it pushed me in this direction. To some extent, I've always wanted to be an architect.
I was a hippie and radical anti-Vietnam war activist, working as a graphic designer for an underground newspaper. The first time I hitchhiked to California was after the 1967 Summer of Love. After recovering from the hippie lifestyle, I went to a free school in Michigan and built my first home. Then he applied to the School of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, entered and moved here finally.
