Article

Letters to the editor

September 9, 2013

On our Boundary issue

Mas issue trace letters to the editor 01

Boundary issue. © MAS Context.

Iker

I, of course, agree with you in your statement on dismantling boundaries.

Architects seem to be educated to form boundaries and have been very effective at creating silos and separations.

As an architect who works in a very different realm, I have experienced this for 30 years. It starts in the schools.

Collaborations are communicated as a form of “dilution” of pure design ideas. Memorable diagrams are seen as singular entities. Somehow valued as more creative and stronger sign of design genius. Yet the end result is simply a fractured environment.

How many design schools offer departments in architecture, landscape, planning and engineering, yet how often do these students collaborate together on design efforts?

The global problems today are bigger than any one individual and any one discipline.

It’s time this field gets its act together.


Philip J. Enquist, FAIA
Partner, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP


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