Innovation and Relevance in Work – Practice and Research by Brian Lee (SOM)

Innovation and Relevance in Work – Practice and Research by Brian Lee (SOM)

Saturday, October 24, 2020 @11:00 JST

SUMMARY:
For SOM’s design practice to sustain the highest standard of excellence for over 80 years, there was and continues to be a shared culture based on a guiding vison – that innovation and relevance frames the work toward a better future. It is not enough to service clients and be satisfied with the status quo. Our profession must lead with addressing the issues of performance and sustainability, promoting health and wellness, and building equitable communities.  We can do it by collaborating and integrating with others outside our discipline, investing in applied research, and dedicating our talents to projects that provide the greatest benefit to all of society. Brian Lee will present his experience as a Design Partner at SOM, leading talented teams in an international practice focused on diverse and impactful buildings. His research initiatives regarding how we live, how we build, and how we imagine the future has informed his design philosophy and process.

Included in the talk will be a presentation of several completed and proposed tall and super tall buildings designed to optimize program, structure, and enclosure, while being sensitive to site and context.  The presentation will discuss the effect of wind engineering on building form and structural efficiency as well as the role of tall buildings in the urban setting. Three Chicago libraries, one combined with affordable housing, will show how designs for public institutions, often on severe budgets, are as important as the largest structures of our time. These civic structures promote educational, social, and economic equality in the city.

Research into the home of the future, high density living, and building a sense of community led to significant new thinking about the nature of tall buildings and the city. New materials and construction methods were developed in partnership with scientists and fabricators at a national energy laboratory and demonstrated with a full-sized prototype. Through collaboration with housing developers, contractors, cultural institutions, and health care researchers, SOM’s interdisciplinary design team was able to propose a series of initiatives that explored wellness and what contributes to a healthy environment.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Ar. Brian Lee, FAIA, is a Consulting Design Partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), one of the most influential architecture, urban design, and engineering practices in the world. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with Highest Honors from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976 and his Master of Architecture with Commendation from Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1978. After practicing in the SOM San Francisco office for 28 years, where he became a Design Partner, he joined the Chicago office in 2007, transitioning to Consulting Partner in 2019.

His portfolio encompasses domestic and international projects at all scales, recognized by over 100 significant awards such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Urban Land Institute, American Library Association, the Chicago Athenaeum, MIPIM, and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Brian has lectured, taught, and participated in studio reviews or Dean’s committees at Harvard, UC Berkeley, Stanford, California College of Arts, IIT, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Virginia Tech, and TU Delft; served on AIA, Athenaeum, Marcus Prize, and Spark juries; and has been published worldwide.  His work was exhibited in the 2004 Venice and Beijing Biennales, featured at the 2008 World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, and the 2015 Chicago Biennial. Brian is a registered NCARB architect and in multiple states across the nation, and is a LEED accredited professional. He is a member of the AIA and was named to its College of Fellows in 2008.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. Identify how SOM has developed an acclaimed practice that combines practical solutions for context, program and budgets, with innovative concepts and strategies that exceed client’s expectations.
2. Explore innovations in tall buildings, showing how the integration of architecture and engineering led to successfully completed, high performance structures, as well as some of the most powerful, unique building blocks in city design.
3. Compare how small scale civic structures become important social, educational, and cultural hubs in emerging neighborhoods, and can be creatively co-located with another use to fit the needs of the entire community.
4. Describe explorations into construction and material technology, such as 3D printing, mass timber, and bi-directional energy sources, which became applied research projects for the future of housing and urbanism.
5. Illustrate tangible strategies for a healthy design that promote a sense of wellness through projects that demanded a more responsive and broad collaboration with developers, builders, engineers, and scientists.

CES:
2.0 LU/HSW