Expanding Visual Practice with Architects

While working at the TJCOG event described below, the Executive Director of AIANC, David Crawford, introduced himself and asked about my background. The encounter resulted in an invitation to make a presentation about my work at this year’s state conference, held last week in Asheville. As a few years have passed since the practice of architecture was my chosen modality for design I felt initially like the prodigal son. The warm reception I received helped me get over that pretty quickly.

To see the presentation's images, click on the Vimeo screen here.

Using this blog’s name as the title, my content went through a progression:
• Some history on how I came to be there
• Examples of work by others in our field
• A synopsis of the history of graphic recording and graphic facilitating, beginning with the work of architects
• An overview of its applications
• My own thoughts about what I’m learning
• Potential applications that would be useful to architects

There were three things that happened that were particularly enjoyable for me:
1. They agreed to participate in a short “Graphic Jam” like what we do at IFVP. They were given one minute to draw a metaphor for each word, and a few of their images are shown below.

All of their drawings can be seen by clicking on these links:
a. Analysis
b. Bio-Diversity
c. Intrusive
d. Clean Air
e. Combos
2. They used Leadership Metaphor Explorer as a way to have images inspire conversations
3. Most of the questions asked were about finding ways to have creative conversations at a deeper level, with clients in particular. Yes, they commented on the visual tools, but their real interest seemed to be relational.

There were a couple of things heard in other sessions that got my attention, and one was from Matthew Frederick, author of 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. He quoted Marshall Berman: “The crumbling of social relationships, not materials, turns structures into ruins.”

Most throttling of all was a conversation I had with Harry Harrison and Darin Waters about the Young Men’s Institute in Asheville. Initially conceived as an African-American YMCA during the time of the Vanderbilts, it was the resourcefulness of the almost invisible African-American communityin Asheville that made it a success. Darin described finding three letters written by his grandfather in the Vanderbilt archives, and commented that “History is about identity.” That made me twitch a bit, considering that sometimes we do not want to be constrained or pigeon-holed by the past.

Later in the talk they quoted one of the early leaders’ confidence in the face of doubts about the viability of the center: “The verdict has not been written.” That’s more the way I like to think, but I asked about the seeming conflict between the two statements. What we ultimately determined is that our histories are never final, but always works in progress.