In Conversation with Jacob Reidel
This transcript is an informal conversation between Shovan Shah (MAUD '20), Dan Lu (MAUD ‘21), Naksha Satish (MAUD ‘21) and Jacob Reidel on October 22, 2019.
Jacob Reidel is an architect, editor, and writer whose work examines the history of architectural practice and seeks to redesign the way architecture is practiced today.
Shovan Shah (SS):
How and when did you transition from traditional architectural practice to a co-working startup?
Jacob Reidel (JR):
I always go back to the beginning. I did my undergrad at Brown University in architectural studies. I mostly focused on history and theory, and also did some studio. After my undergrad, I went to Teach for America. I didn't want to go straight to design school. I was very attracted to Teach for America for a number of reasons, especially as a way to get back and engage in service for a couple years. I was at Teach for America as a core member teaching in the South Bronx.
My professional experience started with working at REX, my first job, during the recession period. After working at REX for three years, I went to Ennead, which had been awesome and I ended up working there for seven years. Both REX and Polshek are wonderful and complementary practices. Working at REX was an incredible experience, which was like doing three more years of design studio with a lot of design competitions. At that time, REX was a smaller practice so you had to do everything. During the time when I felt the need to get more experience with designing and building projects in the U.S., Polshek Partners, now Ennead Architects, came up. To me, it was obviously a great place to go. That was my traditional practice trajectory.
Once I had made the move over to Ennead, some friends from REX and I started Clog (architecture publication). I was also involved in editing, writing and teaching from time to time at Yale. I had one foot firmly in practice and one foot in other pursuits. Through those combined interests, eventually I got involved with a team that was putting in a bid to curate the US Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. Through conversations with the curator and some other folks at Storefront for Art & Architecture, we ended up getting it. Between 2013 and 2014, I spent a lot of time as part of the team and ended up being the curatorial assistant on the U.S. pavilion. It was called “OfficeUS”.
Part of the overall premise was to look at the export of American architectural practice abroad over the last hundred years. Through the work itself and by creating a laboratory practice inside the pavilion, we were looking at the idea that you could look at design of practice itself as a critical exercise. As a part of that, we did three books at the time for “OfficeUS”. The OFFICEUS Manual, which I was most heavily involved with, became a project to look at the protocols and procedures that can shake architectural practice. An office manual is the one document that probably every office has but nobody reads. Through specifically looking at office manuals, we came up with the premise that office manuals are the unwritten, unstated manifestos of practices.
Most of the mission statements of practices online seem to say various versions of the same thing. I was wondering if they were actually saying the same thing, or if they were giving us a lens and window into what practices were prioritizing. That was how I started to get more interested in specifically the architectural workplace, but also offices in general, and started looking more at the designer practice.
Another part of my career relates more directly to education, one of my enduring interests. Part of that has been mostly working on cultural and institutional projects. This includes the overall practice of teaching, and the space one designs to foster that.
At the same time, I had a parallel interest in developing the design of offices, both physical spaces but also the organization itself. That's when WeWork was getting bigger, in 2014, and I knew people who were getting involved with it. What finally brought me there was a group called ‘Powered by We’, where WeWork was making a jump from a co-working model to include design and build, and in some cases, to operating spaces for external clients.
WeWork was starting to take on work with, essentially, enterprise customers, which refers to large scale companies (1000 people or more). When WeWork started to do that, they discovered very quickly that there was definitely a demand for flexible office space and also an appetite to hire WeWork to come in, design and build the spaces. They wanted WeWork to apply what we had been learning from designing and operating enormous amounts of office space around the world. Companies started to realize that this knowledge and learning could be applied to their own spaces.
For me, it was truly a new model for practice. That moment was a rich, incredible chance to challenge prevailing ways of designing and building space and to rethink the way architecture in these spaces is designed, built and operated.
It was a compelling opportunity and that's how I made that transition from a more traditional practice model to something that isn’t fairly typical. For me, it was about the opportunity we had to design a new way of designing and delivering space.
SS:
How do you use technology in these spaces, not just to design the interiors, but to inform the larger built environment?
JR:
If you're asking about how co-working is affecting the exterior, I think that's something that is just starting to be studied now. There are a lot of opportunities in these companies, in architecture and also in the broader context of the industry. It would help to study how this typology affects not only the exterior of a building, but also neighborhoods and cities. The research is starting to be done on that. In the case of WeWork, there was an HR and economic impact report that was commissioned. It is one of the first few studies that's been published so far looking at the impact of co-working on local economies and cities.
SS:
How do you choose to assume your role as a registered architect, editor, global director, and professor to navigate the challenges in your day to day work? What tools do you deploy?
JR:
Oh, which hat do I have? I think you'll see this in our profession and other related professions. Especially in architecture, it is not so uncommon for people to have a combination of teaching, writing and practicing. What is wonderful about architecture as a discipline is that there's a very rich tradition of that. I don't think I'm necessarily operating in such an extreme way outside of that. Perhaps what is not so typical is that I've maintained those identities while still operating within other organizations. I haven’t started my own practice. I was working for Rex and then with Ennead and now WeWork. Certainly, it has allowed me to be the co-founder and editor of Clog, and be part of the curatorial team for OfficeUS.
Teaching at the GSD now makes me feel that I've been fortunate and that I look at work differently. I've been fortunate that my colleagues and collaborators in my life have been supportive of this. Ultimately, I also recognize the value of my multiple hats, partly because there's some level of sympathy to it, but also because I have always been very deliberate in making it clear to people that there is a collective benefit in doing all of these things.
SS:
How do you learn from your life experiences in teaching and practice?
JR:
I think it is almost a cliche to say it, but the basic skills one learns at architecture school and develops as a designer are truly applicable outside the world of architectural design. The things you learn at school are directly applicable not only to designing buildings and space but also to designing systems, collaborating and engaging with community groups. We take many things we've learnt at school for granted. The review systems are all part of the amazing preparation for being effective, especially once you start practicing. The skills of analyzing, design, communication and presentation are all broadly applicable.
The same can be said about experience in teaching. Developing one’s skill at teaching is valuable not only in the classroom, but also in any work environment - dealing with community groups, corporate suites and your own internal teams in a company.
So being able to teach and knowing how to teach are a broadly applicable skill set. Writing and editing are also basic skills that are incredibly valuable in architectural firms and also in a company like WeWork.
SS:
How do you project the larger urban context onto the practice of architecture?
JR:
I think it's becoming more and more clear that it's impossible to look at urbanism in isolation from other topics. I think it’s always been that way but now it is getting more intricately connected. The challenge is about connecting the dots and having tools that allow you to look at the problems and approach them holistically, especially in urban environments.
It’s neither looking at sites nor buildings in isolation. Instead, you look at systems. One can observe the way real estate works and the way information distributed is uneven. It’s creating a necessity for all kinds of additional agents, brokers and middle men - people who help one to navigate these markets and new systems. As you can see in other sectors, advanced technology is providing more opportunities for smoothing out that information distribution. But I think that's not being applied totally at the moment. Again, this is where I'm stepping far outside of things that I'm an expert in. There is an opportunity to create more visibility into the various systems and factors at play.
If we look at the real estate markets, there is a comparable degree of opacity that exists because the market is fractured. For example, if you want to know the rent of an apartment in New York City, there's never a single place you can go and see all details. That's why there's a need for brokers and other service providers to help one navigate that system and smooth out information. That's just the lowest-hanging fruit example of the degree in which information is not distributed evenly across these complex systems.
Think of how powerful it would be from a planning perspective if you could have visibility into all of these. That’s where organizations like Sidewalk Labs come in. They're pushing to create more visibility, have more information available and make these systems smarter, more responsive. But there's clearly a very long way to go because these systems are very fractured.