From China to L.A.: Global Talent to Lead USC School of Architecture

Having worked all over the world, most recently in Shanghai, and with a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, what enticed you to come to L.A. to be USC's Dean of Architecture?

Any place and anything unknown to me fascinates and attracts me. I have never been in L.A. I have never been a dean. This is a combo-fascination!

The most apparent fascination of L.A. is its sense of flow, both in time and space. Mobility is so potent in L.A. It seems to me that the whole population is on a permanent flow. Along with the notion of mobility is the sense of impermanence; it is the transient quality that creates multiple potentials. I can sense this from its informal, whimsical qualities of architecture and the naive and immature urbanity. Together they reject any kind of coherence or consistency that associate with the traditional urban beauty. From the air one can see that various footprints of buildings come together in a random way. But that is not to say there is no value in the whole thing. Quite opposite, there is a hidden intelligence that is curious to me. One can't help thinking that in some later time the whole thing will be changed again. This sense of temporality and fluidity is intelligence for the future.

Secondly, the cultural diversity attracts me. Being on the frontier of America, and the frontier of the Pacific Rim, Los Angeles brings two circles of energy together. It brings different modes of people and economy.

I always seek places with that kind of energy. I left Xian for Beijing in the early '80s when China was just opened for Western culture, I went to New York in the early '90s when the financial business exploded, and then to Shenzhen when it was just designated as a special economic zone and merged with Hong Kong, and then to Shanghai when the World Expo was announced, and now to L.A.

Lastly, there is kind of an intellectuality forming around L.A.'s agenda (or lack of it). On the East Coast, urbanism has already been formulated and institutionalized in terms of practice, teaching, and public opinion. The city is viewed in a very specific, limited way. There is an "image" of a city, I think. The West Coast, and Los Angeles specifically, offers a laboratory for new insights for cities in the future. This last point is significantly related to education. I am a big advocate for opening the school up and building a laboratory on cross-energy of Los Angeles.

What is the importance for you of access to the Pacific Rim? How does it inspire you and influence your design aesthetic?

First, its heterogeneity, which means sincere appreciations for different styles, different outlooks, and different textures-it addresses different people and uses. Second, being on a double frontier-on a cross point between the Pacific Rim and the North America-gives the city a manifest energy, which means it's more ambitious.

Buildings are more ambitious than they are in the other parts of the United States. Works of L.A. architects whom we know, such as Tom Mayne, Frank Gehry, Eric Moss, Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, and many others who represent that renewed ambition that architecture, can transform city and society. More importantly, the young architects, whom I am trying hard to get to know, are even more diversified and decentralized for various agendas.

Let's turn to your deanship of the USC School of Architecture. What new course work, design studios, institutes, etc., are you considering?

There are a lot of things to be done. This school has a long, rich tradition and a collection of great minds. Half of my job is to soak myself into it and go through the collection and reach the "legacies." The other half is to construct propositions, which not only connects to the school's legacy but to the future.

Let me try to describe two propositions. The first one is on building technology that is intended to blur and dissolve the boundaries between different disciplines that are traditionally and practically bonded. This proposition calls for a technology that is not viewed as applied science to justify our building need, but instead, a technology that should specify our need to build.

This technology is a symbiotic intelligence in pursuit for better performance of environment. My colleagues, led by Marc Schiller and Thomas Spiegelhalter, are conceiving a center named the Center of Performances Environment (COPE), which will combine the idea of integrated technologies and cross-boundary researches on environmental performance.

Simultaneously, we start to broaden the notion of architectural design which is not only seen as the business of "making buildings," but also seen as endeavors in better decision-making in political and social contexts. A new Center of Design Operatives is being also conceived.

We now have five graduate certificate programs in architecture/technical design, landscape architecture, building science, historic preservation, and so on. These programs are together treated as capacitors for integrated investigation, research, and teaching.

Landscape architecture hasn't been prominent at USC for a number of years. Why is that, and how could landscape design be better integrated into the school?

We are on an aggressive search for energetic, leading academic voices and courageous practitioners with sensitive local knowledge to put our landscape program on the map again. Two basic understandings are driving this effort: first, L.A., with its rich and dialectic land forms, seen as a laboratory for new intelligence in the built environment; second, landscape as urban agenda to challenge the traditional figure/ground dichotomy.

A strong breakthrough is anticipated from these critical initiatives, which enable us to reach out to a much larger community of intellectuals and practitioners in the United States and throughout the world. People have reacted to our vision very strongly.

The mayor of Los Angeles and many other civic leaders have spoken of the need for better public architecture, urban design, and neighborhood place-making. Planning Director Gail Goldberg and architect Brenda Levin, FAIA, are leading a new, blue ribbon urban design committee. What role should the school play in helping regions and cities adopt urban design guidelines?

We are excited that concerns of the quality of community and urban fabric are on the mayor's agenda. We are on the look out for all kinds of channels that we can use to exchange that energy and enthusiasm from the mayor's office and our school. I am speaking with Gail Goldberg and her team, trying to contribute intelligence and information. Simply put, I want to tell you and your readers, please use us. We are here. If a school doesn't participate in this exciting agenda for the city, I think it is a great mutual loss.

Specifically, in our graduates and the higher level of undergraduates, starting this summer, we are going to consolidate the school's previous endeavors in issues related to the quality of public space and the urban environment.

The summer studio, for example, is being launched with the idea to operate a kind of intellectual archaeology on all the previous projects for the L.A. River in order to create a database and intelligence pool on which a series of great intervention studios in the near future will be formulated. This effort will be featured on the next Shenzhen Biennale on Urbanism and Architecture, which is being curated by me and some of our faculty; it is an initial action of the Center of Design Operatives.

What was it like to have a private practice in Shanghai? What do you bring to Los Angeles from that experience?

I can share with you two simple aspects of my practice in Shanghai. One is never take anything given to you for granted, which means not just following status quo both in expectation and a programmatic formula. Always involve in the process to explore what people need instead of what people want. To do so, one needs be super-practical and pay heed to efficiency, urgency and relevancy. What I mean by this super-practicality is the fundamental nature of construction, not practicality by the standard of practice! This attitude is what I want to bring to Los Angeles.

My practice in China was also very political. Architecture is always political and will always be that way. Flexibility is the basis of Chinese politics, which searches for the ultimate balance between forces in the circumstance. This is something I would share with my community in L.A.

You are designing and building your own home on a site in Pasadena. How did you decide how and where to build?

It is quite personal. Like everybody new to Los Angeles, I visited many homes and saw a rich array of residential buildings. But all the ones that I can afford, I hate. All the ones I love, I can't afford. After a whole month I came to the conclusion that I should forget about looking for any house and start looking for a site or a site with a bad building that no one wanted. Then I can start to build a "dream house," which is a strong phenomenon of Southern California.

Then I came up with some rationales for doing it. Being a dean of a school that is related to profession and practice, if I don't do a building, how am I going to keep my credibility? So I am doing this almost as a job qualification.

The second thing I am curious about is how Southern California domestic architecture is being developed and constructed, not only by architects, but also by all forces in the society.

The site is in Pasadena, on the hillside, facing the Rose Bowl. It is a very difficult site. It somehow comes to my mind that if I don't work with a slope site, I will never be able to claim that I know domestic buildings in Los Angeles. That would be a shame for a dean of an architectural school.