 Hi everyone. Welcome. It's really a great, wonderful pleasure to welcome Stephen Berks for the inaugural lecture this fall. Every fall for the past five years, actually we've hosted a conversation around the question of making an architecture. The series included building cultures last year, which was organized by Enpo Medcipa. In 2018, we organized thinking through making with low tech. And before that in 2017 looked at subject object making in New York City looking at all of the kind of fabrication labs that had emerged with Josh Jordan. But tonight I is a kind of culmination in this kind of moment that we're in and I really wanted to expand this question beyond making for the scale of architecture to rather explore the question of making at the scale of design, the scale of the hand of the body, the scale of industrial and furniture design as a way to recast the question of the relationship of design to architecture and the relationship to craft of craft to design. And so there's no better person to kind of answer or start to explore with us some of these questions then Stephen. And this what I'm hoping we're hoping together will be not only did we share backgrounds or rather I'm using one of Stephen's background homage to sots us on the day of his birthday. But to just have a conversation with Stephen rather than a lecture. I think that it certainly needs to be said that Stephen is one of the most celebrated designers of his generation, his practice Stephen Berks man made has collaborated with many of the most important design driven brands around the world from BNB to Italy to Cappellini, Moroso, Roche Bobois, and many others. Your work Stephen has been exhibited at the Armory show Art Basel Design Miami the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the mad Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Art Museum, so many more. And more importantly, even you've kind of kind of recast what is design or industrial design today with a real emphasis on craft build, you know, working with a network of artisans and around the world. And working with the Nature Conservancy Design Network Africa, and many others. You're also a researcher and an educator. We might have Stephen in the spring, don't tell any other school before you study architecture at IIT and product design at IIT's Institute of Design, as well as attending Columbia's GSAP and I want to hear a little bit about that later. You've spent many years traveling between New York and Europe, you've lived in Tokyo and Milan, and by the way even under COVID. Every time I've seen Stephen or spoken to Stephen this summer. He was either in Mexico City or somewhere in I first encountered Stephen's work when he was awarded the Smith Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in product design in 2015, the first African American designer in that category. And I don't know if you know Stephen, but I was on the jury actually. And really, you didn't know so that we're doing many things, but I really remember being smitten by your work, especially the video that you submitted, which showed a kind of very unique and personal process, especially for the time I mean this was. This was 2015 and you were already, you were really clearly investigating issues of form, color, materiality, structure, but you also already were speaking about process and the story and life of the making of objects and who makes them and how. And, and insisting on bringing craft and design together in a way that I don't think people were already kind of questioning these. These ideas and in the kind of thornness that that you brought and so I guess the first question I would ask is, I know you've said that in this bridging of design and craft is a kind of position for you that design is sort of a Western concept. And I wanted to start there in terms of how you're kind of your work undermines and these centers. That idea. Yeah, well, let me let me start by thanking you for inviting me to be here at my alma mater. I'm really excited to be talking at the GSAP, even virtually, and, and thanks everyone for joining. When I think about design as a Western concept. I have to return to it and the Institute of Design, and start with the Bauhaus and this idea that a new profession can be invented around ways of using material around ways of engaging industry around ways of creating new concepts for products that we didn't even know we needed, or didn't even know existed. And this was very much about the invention of the modern right this is very much about the translation of the Industrial Revolution into what the 20th century became. Now we enter the 21st century and, and I can say that up until 2005, I was working fairly traditionally. I wasn't really thinking about another kind of context outside of Europe. In fact, when I started a designer here in New York pretty much had to go to Europe to kind of make a name for himself or herself. And I really, I looked up to all of those companies which were very much rooted in Italy and I, as I had lived in Milan in the mid 90s designing watches for swatch believe it or not. Right after Columbia, I moved it to Milan. I, I have to say I was, I was very much enamored with the system of production and marketing and really designed that that Milan created. And so, you know, when you, when you think that Italy is a country like the size of California, and most of the brands that we know of that are of significance were founded around post war. So I think in the Italia 1966, Sony 1953, Moroso 1953. So these brands really for me were rooted in craft. And it's something that I realized later after after making a few things and and having the opportunity to work first in South Africa. So it was that trip to South Africa that that kind of awakened me to another way of making a way of making that was connected to the hand and and very, very separate from any kind of academic reference, a way of making that was, for me, proof that everyone's capable of design. And if we look at all of the countries outside of Europe and America, what we call the developing world, which really we should call the majority world. All of these other places people have been making things in traditional ways for generations, and everyone's a desire and everyone somehow solving a problem through design problem that's connected to their community a problem is connected to their way of life. A problem that they don't think of as design, making products that have meaning in their lives. And that was a big question mark for me that was a really big like wow, there's another way of looking at design. And I'm also you mentioned the Bauhaus there was also a kind of very big split between design and architecture. Actually, women were designers and could do fabrics and textile and couldn't do architecture and And so I wanted to kind of, I know you've talked a lot about that relationship about, you know, of design to architecture and you started as as an architect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess I, I, I quickly understood that I was much more interested the scale of the body on the scale of the hand the scale of the interior, the places where we live, the places where the things around us are an expression of who we are. Architecture to me became, and it's hard because growing up in Chicago, right? I'm surrounded by some of the most beautiful examples of modernist architecture and Mies van der Rohe's presence really loomed large. I mean, I chose IIT because of Crown Hall, I didn't apply to any other school and undergrad. But once I got there, I realized that that there wasn't enough humanity in architecture. I know that it sounds like a funny way to say it, but, but, you know, I really believe that we're all responsible for the city that we live in. We're all somehow, you know, players in the urban fabric at whatever level that is. And so, you know, to be a person in the world and to live in a city and to kind of understand architecture is one scale. But then we go deeper into the communities and into the individuals and we understand people much more intimately at the design scale. So I'm looking at these beautiful images and I love the process images and, you know, where you leave, you know, I've always actually dreamt of a hairy architecture, you know, things that are not finished or complete and you play a little bit with that. Take us through a process or, you know, what is the story of a I should probably start by explaining that this is really a kind of stream of consciousness. I because I don't believe in monologues. I kind of also don't believe in a linear way of looking at my work because I'm, I'm actively working on so many different kinds of things. I mean, we've had moments where we're working on fragrance packaging and exhibition interior lighting furniture, et cetera, all at the same time and and my own personal interests and you know, thinking about my education and how linear education is right my own personal interests have always been much more diverse than the education I've been immersed in. And so, you know, you're seeing images of process you're seeing images of products you're seeing snapshots from my recent family vacations. You know, all of these things feed my creative impulse. And when I think about process, I have to say that we have to remember that architecture is creative architecture is a creative act it isn't, it isn't like a startup it isn't like simply, you know, developing a building it's, it's, it's, it's very, it can start from, you know, a brick, it can start from clay can start from an idea. And the same is true for design. And so if I think about one of these particular objects. I guess I could talk a bit about data on who's been my number one client for years. And they give me the the access to go into the field and work in the way that I'm most comfortable which is a kind of workshop based practice. And so all of these process images you're seeing regardless of the brand are the way that we typically engage a product. So we start by sketching of course we start with, you know, it could be anything that kind of starts us in terms of the idea. But when we go to the factory that's when the project really begins. Like going down to Berea, Kentucky. When we saw each other recently I was just coming from Berea, and we're working with Berea College Berea student crafts there on a project called crafting diversity. And that is very much tied to the college's commitments great commitments as the first integrated college in the south since I think 1855. But then also tied to I think what the students need today and and what, you know, in a sense our whole country needs today. Right. We're all coming to this awakening that we, you know, design is is not a very diverse discipline it's kind of just being discovered by other kinds of people. Not very many people of color obviously not very many women working in design and and so crafting diversity for us was a project that was conceived by Glenn Adamson and John Prown, Glenn Adamson the design historian. John Prown from the Chipstone Foundation. Megan Doherty who is, I think the curator at the Art Museum at the school and Aaron Beal who's the director student craft. And they reached out to me to kind of engage me in a year long process of working with the students in a participatory way to develop totally new products that could not only speak to the great commitments and their diversity. But also speak to a new way of making at the school. And it's almost as if I've translated my way of working directly into their way of working. So we've we've we've got products now where the students are involved creatively. And so like the artists and communities I've worked with around the world, the students are directly serving as what I call hand factories. And so hand factory, meaning the hand has power, the hand has creativity, the hand is not the machine. And so the students can in many of the products or some of the products actually change the design according to, you know, their own creativity. So that's, I guess a long winded answer to your question. I took you through a lot of things. No, no, that that's very interesting. So it's a kind of. So you're setting up a process by which every hand has is part of it. Right. I mean, would you say that it's almost like a slightly collaborative design process or It's it's it's intended. It was intended to be completely collaborative. But, you know, it's it's a little bit tricky because I've tried so many different ways to execute ideas like this in the field in Senegal, in Colombia, in the Philippines, we've probably been the most successful in the Philippines with data on because we're developing a product. And I have a lot of freedom. And I'm learning so much from the artisans there. But in the case of the students, you know, they were a bit shy. And here I am, big designer coming from New York and not dictating what should be done, but but really trying to kind of open the book for the first time for them and say, Hey, if you were to participate in this design process, what would you make? And so we did several workshops over the year where the students were were drawing and sketching trying to kind of imagine and and there is no design. Well, there is there is an industrial design program there at the school, but we didn't have any designers in our workshops. So students were coming from biology from English. And the work study program there is is how the tuition is paid. Rhea College is completely tuition free. So that's an aspect that I forgot to mention. And so, you know, the students came but I also had to bring ideas to kind of engage and initiate the process, which is a lot of how I'm working in the field. So you bring ideas and then you kind of engage in the process and how are you working? I mean, I joked a little bit about your traveling, but in this we were going to talk in this moment of being very connected and completely disconnected. How are you maintaining your commitment to working with artisans all over the world and Well, Amal, it's it's it's challenging, you know, it's really challenging. I think the brands that we're working with now are are looking at new ways of launching products in order to make space for new products right now. Believe it or not, we're busy. We've gotten a lot of attention recently and and a lot of companies are still. We all thought in the home furnishings business right that COVID would be the death of us. And the first quarter we saw our royalties drop by a third, but then by the second quarter right things had already picked up. And second quarter of COVID, which is actually third quarter of the year. And so, all around the world people are confronting their domestic lives again right and they're kind of coming to terms with how they're living and what they're living with and a lot of people are choosing to renovate and a lot of people are buying new furniture. And if you're working from home, you kind of have to reinvent your office space. And so there's been a boom in the home furnishings industry. And as a result, we've gotten a lot of new projects. Now those projects aren't ones where we can practice our traditional process. We were already involved with Berea. So we were, you know, the plans were already in place for us to go down and our final trip was delayed because of COVID. And we had the special attention of PBS and Craft in America, who came down and kind of trailed us. And I believe on December 11th, they'll be showing our work on Craft in America on PBS, which is great. But in other cases, we've had to work in different ways. And I think, you know, looking at the home as a laboratory is what it's been about. You know, I'm telling my team not to get stuck. And this is, you know, for me, this is advice across the board. I think these are really challenging times, but they're really exciting times. You know, we have to imagine that out of all of this chaos and out of all of this difficulty are going to come new ways of working, new ways of producing totally new products, new architecture, etc. And it's really important not to get stuck. So I'm working more as an artist these days. I mean, I'm making things myself. I'm prototyping, I'm working in paper, I'm doing more drawing than I have in years. And it's so exciting, you know, to see what I can come up with on my own, right? So, communicating with my team via WhatsApp, as I guess we all are. There's a lot of that, which I think creates interesting opportunities to also communicate with artists and groups. And that's something that we've begun to think about. So almost like a correspondence craft, you could call it. Yeah, that's very interesting because for someone who is so committed to the materiality, you know, to find a way to work through correspondence, I think is kind of really interesting. I know you've been working with Friedman Benda as well and hosting their design talk series and kind of working on a show, I hope, or, you know, so the kind of your artist self is also, and one of the quotes that I enjoyed reading recently, and it's something that we talk about, we've talked about at the school is the notion of how does one construct a practice and how does one construct, you know, their own practice to engage issues to engage the world to engage architecture and you said to the question, this was an interview by surface magazine. What is the most important thing you've designed to date and you said well I'm still in the process of designing my own career. But that was very interesting because you mentioned how the path that you've taken is not, you know, linear and you're really kind of and you see the show here you're kind of really hybridizing the personal, the political, you're working across scales, you're kind of bringing craft and, you know, making a statement about craft as design, being extremely local but also completely global in your network. I mean, kind of pushing back on sort of assumptions and so anyway, I just wanted to think about also for students like today there is, as you said, it's such a difficult time but also such a time of change and demand for change and, you know, how to channel that in the skills and ways of thinking and making that we have. Yeah, no, no, no, I think the scariest notions that I'm hearing in the world are that people want things to be the way that they were. I think change is the only true constant and I don't know about you but as much as it's been a volatile moment and there have been some really tragic events, you know, I'm driven to do more. I'm driven to make, you know, completely new future for myself and my community and, you know, what I'm finding is that I seem to have more of a voice and it's interesting to discover new ways of communicating. Design is a form of communication as well and so, you know, I'm not only working at multiple scales and working locally and internationally but I'm also working on being in touch with a broader community. Speaking here, the GSAP with you, Amal, is part of that design and dialogue as you mentioned is part of that being able to, you know, work with my partner here on, you know, the reinvention of kind of our domestic space as a laboratory is part of that my 15 year old son living with us is part of that, you know, is kind of like a cross generational, you know, design studio here these days. It's, I think, all very, very interesting and I guess I can say that when I think about me still designing my career, I never really thought that I'd be a designer. I actually went after finishing in product design I went back to, I went to grad school right to be an architect, and I never really had a picture of what a design career looked like. And I think that young people need to see examples of what a design career can look like and, and I think it's important that, at least in my work that I show a diverse range of possibilities, not just in terms of materials and processes but but in terms of collaborators right. It's not always just about luxury brands and big names. It's also about being of service and, and connecting, I guess on a deeper level to people who are in many ways the artisans are like mentors to me right so teaching me things that I could have never imagined on my own. And so, you know, we have to be willing to dream. We have to reengage our imagination and we have to consider that there's there's new ways of having a career that haven't been invented yet. You weren't very happy in your studies at Columbia to study. You know, I actually, I don't want to get too much into that, but but I could say that. Sorry for any. Any abuse that I that I suffered at the hand of an archivist and company. Well, it was the early 90s, you know, it was a paperless studio. I went in thinking that, okay, now coming from product design where the focus of my work was like technology and space. I came to Columbia thinking, okay, this is the perfect place to, you know, to study that and I remember I'm going to date myself dramatically here. But I remember driving to the MoMA in 1989 and the dead of winter with my two best friends at the time and a little BMW and to see the deconstruct of this architecture show. And that show, you know, really brought to light the idea of going to Columbia of living in New York of being an architect. But of course, I'm looking at work that, you know, I'm looking at the side needs of the world. I'm looking at Daniel Liebeskin. I'm looking at, you know, his amazing drawings and the paintings that showed and, you know, I'm looking at at work that wasn't traditional architecture. And so I went into Columbia thinking, oh yeah, this is the place where, you know, I can sort of be free and you know, I'm going to paint my drawings. I'm not going to. And of course, it was no paper allowed. It was really a bizarre situation. Just the opposite of what I needed, you know, and at IIT in architecture, it was very much about the art and science of building. We did full scale break details and sections through building. We had visual training courses that came straight from the Bauhaus, you know, two lines on a on a 20 by 30 board for three weeks. It was incredible. It was incredible. But it was highly for me it was it was formational because it was kind of foundation of the history of design. And I guess where I excelled at Columbia where I enjoyed the studies the most was probably the history and theory sequence. Right. I remember taking the visions of the real seminar and, you know, learning that all of these modernist houses were in polychrome. So there were some things that inspired me that I took with me as I ran from that place to Milan to do other things, you know. But what I find really interesting is that architects typically aren't so concerned with the interior these days. I think in the early days of modernism, right, the architect was doing everything. And, and so thinking about I've been to Albert Alto's little summer house on the lake in Uvescala and seeing the door handle that he designed. You know, seeing all of the aspects of the house that he designed he created. And I know that it's it's difficult to imagine how we can bring craft to architecture today. But I think we have to try. I think we have to return to this moment where, you know, the architect was deeply involved in all aspects of the building and not just kind of writing it off and hoping someone else will do a great job there. You know, it's very interesting because I think in a way the way I see it is things are not coming back but certain certain things are coming back in a new way to reconnect us. So, for example, craft is not just about being, you know, connected to materiality or it's no longer, you know, the authenticity of the brick or but it's rather what what went into the making of the brick how much energy did it take to make the brick who you know, what conditions where the bricks may you know the questions that you engage in in your work and so I think I think architecture and certainly architecture students and you know are trying to to kind of look look at that trajectory of the material. I want to I want to redesign the brick. And take into account, and, and, you know, so I think I think that's, you know, that's one aspect. And the other is talking about the paperless studio and you know it's, it's very interesting. And they really, I mean, obviously this is a really intense moment of kind of technological experiment in terms of communication but the, the making, you know, over the past few years at the school has really hybridized, you know, it's not like fabrication is is that it has to be, you know, in the fab lab or whatever the students are really kind of hybridizing the sketch and the collage and the, you know, that kind of much more free. Absolutely. And that's where I think the potential really lies and like getting the hand closer to the act of making again, and looking at that space between technology craft and community. When we're all these, these three come together. There's a lot of play, there's a lot of room to play. There's a lot of room for experimentation. And that's, that's super exciting. What's happening at the cheese. Absolutely. But, but, okay, now that you've mastered the scale of. Are you, are you tempted by the scale of architecture. I am no no no I think I think about it all the time you know what I what I think about most is designing my own house. And I have this dream of, you know, the Costa Brava in Spain and and of course it's a glass house right so you can see all the beautiful things inside. It's almost like the challenge there would be how to not just focus on the transparency of the architecture but but to kind of play with that transparency right to play with. It's it's any Albers it's the pliable plane you know that's that's where my mind goes to a place where all of the surfaces are somehow mutable and and all of the systems are are really interwoven and and it's it's a kind of. Yeah, it's a bit of a dream. It's interesting because you have you do you did take something from the 90s the surface language but okay. But no, but I think it's very interesting because you took it in a completely different place of interweaving and creating, you know, volume, as opposed to, you know, I mean I'm just going back to your deconstructed kind of a show idea of loading surfaces as a as a kind of undoing of a certain kind of architecture right this sort of course modern, but you sort of brought it brought you know woven back, you know, and you won't, you know, you will things back to I have to say I have to say that I mean it may not look like it but every single one of my products is a little building. It's a little it's a it's a tiny little building you know because there's so much. I'm always thinking at the at the detailed level, but I'm always trying to generate structure somehow and and that's something that I can't. I haven't been able to remove from my work and even though you see color and you see pattern and this we've been I mean this is this table for me for example is the the new National Gallery. And it's like, you know, there are ideas there that that that are obviously coming from architecture that are always deeply in me. And I'm not so interested in form for form's sake. I'm interested in form as an expression of of the structure. Right. So, even when I had to work in alabaster on this jewelry box for Harry Winston. We were we were carving away at the material to reveal the structure right so they're you know when you look at those those chairs or the baskets it's like there's something about that that micro scale and how structure can be developed as a surface that's completely pliable and mutable and and can take any form that that we want to give it. And that that to me is it's very exciting. So I don't know it's I think to be able to make space in an architectural education for for students to explore new ways of developing structure right that that may not may not relate to a building. In the same semester. Maybe they relate to a building, you know years from now, but but I think it's it's important. I think it's really important to be able to play and you've also said that you know design has really been and you've talked about it a little bit a way to explore your own identity. And I see, you know, protest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. For me it's all connected right that that that design and all of this work cannot possibly exist outside of the society I'm living in architecture shouldn't be trying to exist outside of the society that it lives in. I mean we design and produce the mechanisms and systems by which these things are possible. And I'm fascinated by the design of protest, for example, and, and, and I'm looking at, you know, my people in this country, still fighting for equality. And it's just, it's not just an equality of the body, although that's the immediate one right that we just want to live and exist in these spaces and feel safe. It's also the equality of the mind, and, and the freedom to have a different way of thinking different way of looking at the world, where you can feel secure in that and you can say this is my culture and these are my beliefs and, and we can be different from one another, but still live together, right. And so, yeah, we went out and we protested, of course, the photographs you're seeing of the protest or by a young Brooklyn photographer Malik CD Bay, not the famous Malian Malik CD Bay. But a much younger one, his work I've just started to collect and, and I think he's, he's brilliant. I think it's important that, you know, young people are out there documenting what's going on, and, and that is inspiring all of us. I mean, you know, looking at thinking about buying art is has been a way for me to find joy amongst all of this, and, and making, of course, making art or design, as I call it. And, you know, how we make and what we make, and what we use, you know, is so tight I'm thinking about the fires and I mean it's unbelievable we are in this moment right where, as you say everything we do is, is, you know, as designers and as architect is completely tied and to this is what we use and. So is it interest, is it, is it. I mean, obviously you've been thinking about that as well. Right. Yeah, I mean, that was kind of when, of course, you're relating to climate, you're speaking of climate change, etc. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't really make sense for me to be flying all over the world right doesn't really make sense for these products to be flying all over the world and you know, we're trying to operate in a 21st century way with 20th century systems. And so, you know, part of my work when I was at Harvard as a little fellow was looking at ways to rethink design and the distribution of products and, and even who, who the designers are right like this statement I continue to make. About everyone being capable of design. I mean, I think that that really is the future that in the future we will all design our own products and and those products will be made as locally as possible, because, you know, there won't be another way that's valuable, right. And unfortunately, we may have to do away with leather chairs and we have to do away with meat and, you know, we just, you know, all of these things have to be reconsidered and, and, and that's what's I think so exciting about the student culture today. You know, I was teaching in the masters of design engineering at Harvard. And there's a real sort of startup culture there. The students are young entrepreneurs mostly. And I also have been an expert in residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab and the students that I'm meeting very much want to get out there and change the world. And unfortunately, most of them think it's going to be through an app. But, but, you know, if an app is just a window to a new system, or a new mechanism, right, a new platform as a means of, of breaking down the old ways of doing things and creating space for new ways of doing things and I think it didn't make sense. But we have to be careful of constantly wanting to connect it to capitalism, right. I, I don't know, I recently interviewed Pedro Reyes and Fernandez down in Mexico and their approach has been very socialist. I mean, she's a fashion designer working with, you know, dozens of different communities. He's an architect and an artist, learning from different communities in terms of his stone production, etc. And, you know, their, their approach, I think is, is one that, that reminds me of my own. And I just haven't, I have to admit a lot of the work that you're seeing are not the most successfully commercial thing in the world. They, they, they are, they are what they are and they're, they're, they're experiments and I've learned quite a lot from them and, and they continue to, to move my practice forward. Well, it's always this balance, right, of how do you support the kind of research practice and while while maintaining a kind of commitment. But these, these images are really kind of beautiful and want us to go places. You know, you mentioned this balance between research and, and, and business. And I think that, in a lot of ways, research and business and, and society, right. Kind of have to come together and academia today, in education today, because the students are not just, they're capable of so much more, and they want to do so much more. And, you know, they, they're living through, I mean, this, this summer, we haven't seen anything like this since 1968, right. It, it, it, I think speaks to how much the world needs to change. And so, if the research component feeds into the business component that then serves the community, right, then I think we can find a kind of healthy balance. And that's, if I were teaching at the GSAP, that's what I was going to say maybe. Before I want to make sure to open it up to questions. One, two questions, what would be the first is what would be an ideal project for you today, like if I, you know, what, yeah. Or something that you've never done that you besides building your own house, which, but you know what would be something that you that you would really want to do. I know a lot of people are working on this, but there, there has to be a reinvention of the fashion system. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so wasteful. I mean, it's among the top polluters in the world. And, and I have to say it's a little disheartening to see so many young people wearing sort of generic made anywhere kind of uniforms that then are disposable. You know, we're coming from a generation which, you know, we were much more aspirational in terms of if I can afford this, I'm going to keep it forever. And, and so I think fashion is an interesting area to explore from from the ground up right from the textile level up. Yeah, my partner is Cambodian and a lot of the clothing today is being made in Cambodia. And so the textile workers need our help. I think there's a lot of room for redevelopment there, but then architecture has to be reinvented right. I'd love to just work on a little house, you know, not to, was it Haydek who did house for a hermit? Yes. I don't remember. It was for everyone. Yeah. He had one particular project, which was about a kind of house for a hermit, if I'm not mistaken. So, so there's something about that. Yeah, house for, for who? It's kind of like, you know, you don't want to be alone, right? We want to have parties and we want to, you know, get together. Washington Square Park is like exploding with young people trying to kind of just gather and dance and have fun. And so something about the house and the club, I think could be fascinating today, right? Because I have to say, I really miss, I miss that kind of space in the city. That's the 90s, by the way. Yeah. All right. Those were good times, you know, those were really good times and not to be nostalgic because that's not what we're here for. But I think the social spaces need to be reinvented. We need to think about how we gather successfully and how we gather healthily and how we share in those spaces, right? Those were really creative places of invention. Not just physical invention in terms of dance, but, but just the way that people related to one another, you know, in terms of design and fashion and communication. And there are all of these, I don't know, you know, there was that recent exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum around the club, which was pretty interesting. And I think, I don't know, was a little bit nostalgic as well. I think how we come together is a question for design and architecture. And, and so, okay, my last question before opening it up, what would be a dream studio for students or what would you want to push? I'd love to work with that essay that Annie Albert's essay, The Pliable Playing, I'd love to revisit that, right? But, but from, from a real detailed level in terms of materiality, right? I don't know what it is, but that would be a lot of fun to see that develop into architecture. Stephen, let me, let me ask a few, few questions. Sure. Maybe we can just keep the slides playing because there's a lot more that you guys haven't seen. The first is what is your relationship to natural materials, the clay and the reeds, etc., and other contextual resources that are more freely available in Africa. And, and it's a question about, say, regionalism as opposed to exoticism. And also to add in terms of the basket pattern language, do you feel it could find a relationship to architecture? I guess it's a question about weaving and natural materials and how you're engaging with these kinds of patterns. I learned so much working in Senegal. I mean, I guess it's in reference to a lot of the images that they've been seeing of me working with basket weavers in Senegal. But the Senegalese are really difficult to work with at that scale, at least the ones, the communities I was engaging. So I worked in the second city of Chase in little villages outside of Chase. And, you know, for me, the point was to obviously use sweetgrass because that's that's what all of the baskets were being made from. And it's important to say that all of those baskets here you see in their image are made without any written record. The form, the pattern, they weave the form, the pattern and the color simultaneously without a drawing. The drawings that I brought to these little villages were the first time they had ever worked in drawing. And so there is a kind of there's it's communicated, you know, the difference between knowledge and wisdom. It's just passed down and I don't have a particular relationship to natural materials and I'm only I'm only interested in kind of pushing the material to its its limit in a sense. But I work with the material of the cultures that I'm engaged. I don't have any examples here in the images but in Colombia, we worked with weavers that were coming out of the Amazon with a technique called wetagae. And wetagae, if you're not familiar, I mean, I have no idea this existed, but, you know, it is such a dense form of weaving that it the vessels feel like ceramic. They feel like plastic and they're all made from natural fibers that are many of which are naturally died and they're making vessels that are from a foot tall to three feet tall. Something that's that big takes several people months to make. And it's, I think there's so much in terms of indigenous cultures that we can learn from there's that great book low tech that came out recently. No relation to low tech the architects. Yeah, my friend who might be listening. Question and comment lovely present presentation some personal queries what poetry and literature have impacted you most and what are you currently reading and do you carry a daily sketchbook. Wow. Those are great questions. Really to the core. I'm a big fan of the music of my youth the music I grew up with the music my mom was listening to. I tell my son all the time that anything you want to know about, you know, black people in America is in our music. And that's the poetry that speaks mostly to me. I recently saw the documentary I'm not your Negro James Baldwin. I'm reading the book. I'm reading so many things at the same time. It's a little bit embarrassing. I'm reading. I had the recent pleasure of becoming friends with Bell hooks. Bell is down in Bria College in Bria, Kentucky. She lives there and the bell hooks Institute is there. And so my partner and I are just rereading or reading for the first time many of those works. There's a great conversation, a little pamphlet that she published from the Institute between her and Cornell West, which is incredible. And then there was what was the third oh my sketchbook. So I have a lot of sketchbooks I have. I'm reaching back into satsasa's house to pull out my sketchbook. I don't know. That's right. That's right. Anyway, I buy these small. Yeah, I use the Muji sketchbooks that are like the medium size. They're about an inch thick and they're like six by eight inches. Something about that size I really like. I'm working now on a big drawing for Beirut for Beirut architects for Beirut, which so. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we have we have a huge library and someone told me years ago that a child that grows up with access to a library will just be more intelligent and empathetic and insightful. And so I've been a bibliophile my whole life. I worked in the library when I was at IIT and and it's a bit of a burden, you know, but it's something that like I have to carry with me. My books are kind of my life and and they're they're they're referenced material and they're also like, you know, sit down and spend hours, but it varies. I'm sure you're the same way. It's a generational thing. It is. I think, I think, I think this generation's reading quite quite a lot as well, which is a book didn't die so. No, the book didn't die but the book pack rat maybe did. So you have ideas about how design might contribute to or potentially solve global warming. That's a question. Wow. That's a really big question. She was in conversation with Beatrice Galilee recently and her project the world around, if you're familiar about the conference that she, she did which came out of a day in the life of architecture she was doing at the Met. And when she was writing about architecture years ago. And the cover of the magazine said, if you want to save the world, don't build anything. So it's like, you know, how do you, how do you do that? I think that's true of almost all of the things that we enjoy. And kind on Earth, for better or for worse, can only do harm. It's kind of a negative way to end but but but but you know we can also express our dreams in the process right. So we can't not build we can't not design and make and can't not eat, but we have to find smarter ways of doing that. And I think that's I love the sensitive nature of that question. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Maybe tying it in a way to to this other question, which is maybe a little bit more kind of tangible, can you discuss how design at multi scalar approaches can heal fractured cities and communities. I think you're trying to do that and through the process. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we would love to collaborate with architects. And our goal is now to try to work at the scale of the building and look at a community based project. Like, is it possible when a building is being built to not just, you know, grant permission and and and allow the developer to have at it but to force the developer in the building to give back to the community. And one way of doing that could be to engage the people in the community that need work in the production of the building itself. And it can be a long term project. I mean, you know, these buildings are taking some cases three to five years to complete. And so if you're if you have a design process that's that long, we as architects have to engage in in bringing craft and bringing the community into it as soon as possible. And that may require like restructuring, you know, the economics of the project, right. But wouldn't it be beautiful if the people in public housing built the public housing and and if they not only built it but they built it from the inside out. Right. And could have a say over how they're living and what they're living with and play a role in I mean imagine how much more you appreciate your, your home if you participate in the building. So that's the scenario that I'd like to kind of push forward. I don't know how to do that just yet but that's where we'd like to be. That's a great. That's a nice maybe question to start ending on. How would you go about building a doghouse. That's a question that we got seriously. Yeah. It's, you know, our first project was a doghouse. Oh, yeah. Okay, I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh. That's really funny. Um, yeah, yeah, because you can't really speak to the client. Can you. Right. So what is a doghouse doghouse is the expression of the architects imagination at a different scale, I suppose. So, I, I, we've been, I don't know if this related but we've been playing with Django blocks, lately exploring certain things with little Django blocks and I don't know it'd be funny to make a doghouse that somehow mutable right that the dog could shape just by being inside. I think I was a dog in my past life. I think it's, I mean, I don't want to, but it is interesting as architects and designers to think about building for non human. I mean, right if we're going to be caretakers. Absolutely. And maybe one last question. I mean, what is design and craft interchangeably. And if, if not, I guess you're the lecture. You know what is really the difference between the two I mean that this is something that you're. Yeah, use them interchangeably. Yeah, I mean, you know, I try not to think of design as being defined by the limits of his definition. I mean, I try to think of design as being a lot more expansive and and so there I think there's some crossover, right. So there's a certain point where, you know, a sketch changes from being designed to become craft and and it's kind of about how you your intention is, I suppose, right. So, so, and how you how you express yourself in that medium. I guess you could be working in craft and it's just purely design, but I mean your project is to blur the boundaries between right. Absolutely. Okay, one last question. Although you've said that your work hasn't been commercially successful, which is not entirely true by the way. We can find value in other ways beyond economic value obviously in your estimation what has been your most successful project. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I can't really speak to the commercial success, but and this is maybe a little personal but but my the chair that my son loves the most is not my favorite at all. But but it's it's somehow like important to me favorite. Yeah, because it's his favorite, you know, and it's and and it's not so much. I know it sounds like it's really about him being my son but it's also about the fact that as a designer, you know, to have real feedback is changes how you see your work. And most of the time we have no idea how people are living with our things. And so to have to be living with our things here and have him around. You know, and talking about what's his favorite what he likes what he doesn't like changes my opinion of it, and of its success. The last is not a question it's a comment. Hi Stephen as I recall, we chewed through a lot of paper at G SAP. Oh yeah, maybe you know the person but Stephen thank you so much. It was really wonderful to have you even virtually at G SAP but really kind of threading so many so many dimensions that I think we aspire to engage as architects and you're doing it. Just beautifully but also just with the kind of level of commitment and complexity from from the process to the actual object and it's really wonderful to see and really inspiring I think as a first lecture as we enter this complex semester that with, you know, dreams and aspirations for hopefully what what we can weave forward on the on this moment. Building on as you said and on on the change that's that's burning so and hopefully we'll welcome you back in the spring I hope with some some in person and it's been just wonderful to have you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the big clapping in wood. But of claps so all right all right, you then. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your thanks to you so thanks everybody. See you soon.