“Progress and Practice”

A Conversation with Lindsay Harkema l W.I.P Collective

by Ilo Tarrant, The SEED

Perhaps Roxanne Gay would refer to me as a “Bad Feminist,” because I must admit, this year women’s history month hasn’t been on my radar. And to confess a little further, I don’t think it’s ever been on my radar. I struggle with the idea of how to mark this… occasion? Perhaps this is as good a time as any to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions that women have made to society, despite devastatingly low opportunity and traditional gender roles dating back generations working against them. It’s true, that we may never be able to fathom the depth of loss incurred by excluding women from important decision making throughout history. We may never be able to fully grieve what we don’t know has been absent. But the unknown also carries with it the prospect of endless possibility. As society changes, we can begin to look to the future with hope about what we have yet to gain. We can allow ourselves to become inspired by the breadth of possibility being paved for us by powerful women setting aside old ideas of how society is ‘supposed to’ run. 

The design collective, WIP is a living working example of a collective that begins to answer the question, ‘what if more women were in charge?’ We had the opportunity to sit down with the founder, Lindsay Harkema to discuss their work. WIP, which stands for both “Women in Practice,” and “Work in Progress,” is a collective of female designers who come together for community-based projects.

In hearing Lindsay describe the culture and values of WIP, an image comes to mind of a gathering of friends, coming together and creating a sense of nourishment in design. The collective originated from a brunch held in Lindsay’s home, with the goal of bringing together a support network for women in independent design practice. From there, collaboration developed organically. “Many designers are surprised to hear that the group design process works. I think people assume that design by committee means that things get watered down. We’ve found that it actually strengthened the design ideas. They’ve become more compelling or richer than if any of us did it individually. That’s a happy surprise, and it really speaks to the value of collective authorship rather than the singular author.”

In working within a feminist collaborative, Harkema found that attention and care has been given to elements of design that have historically been neglected. “We’ve been really focused on the idea of embodiment. That has typically been gendered as female in design, but it’s not that experiences of the body are feminine, but the attention to them typically has been understood as feminine.” This principle is palpable in their work Restorative Ground, an immersive public space that includes zones for varied levels of sensory experience.

The future is bright for WIP. Where before they focused on work that came to them, now they are transitioning to a more active pursuit of projects, while still keeping a firm connection to their community and to their ideals. “It’s our values that make me the most proud – valuing collaboration, valuing collective authorship and resisting patriarchal values to traditional design processes.” It seems clear that the beliefs at the core of WIP not only lead to better working environments and collaboration between creators, but also to better design.

By Ilo Tarrant

To learn more about WIP Collective's works , click the link below:

 We look at the works of

Toshiko Mori:

The Interweaving of Light and Material, an Atmospheric architecture of Experience and Social Responsibility.

by Aida Miron, The SEED

Toshiko Mori is the founding principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, the New York based architect was born in Kobe, Japan and studied at the Cooper Union School of Architecture where she taught for many years, she holds an honorary master’s degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and is the first female faculty member to receive tenure. She was the GSD chair from 2002–2008. Toshiko Mori is renowned for her innovative use of materials, concerns for the environment and for upholding the social contract in architecture. In her words: “Architecture is an art of imagination and observation…In our practice, material, fabrication and performance are the recurring research techniques we use to develop buildings that are both precise in function and imprecise in poetic atmosphere.” 

Using ideas of transferability, her medium often becomes the message: she highlights visual presence, the experience of space, “the quality of the light,” phenomenology of materials, and value of resources in an environmental, social and historical context. Each project captures “an essential quality” of architecture, where Mori “strive[s] to capture a certain atmosphere of site and program, a genius loci or essential spirit. Perhaps it is an effort to seek the spiritual dimension in architecture." 

Simple in its appearance, the work “has multiple narratives, analytical and spiritual, interwoven within,” Her work can be characterized by its lightness, not only in its structure, and degrees of transparency, but by its use of light, which often informs unprecedented forms of abstraction and spatial phenomena, adding ethereal, immaterial, and atmospheric qualities to strict tectonics while interweaving the physical and the emotive, as well as an ecological consciousness.

The work also upholds “architecture’s unique social contract: an unwritten trust between architect and society.”[4] This is clear in her pro-bono project for Thread: Artist Residency and Cultural Center, in a rural village in Sinthian Senegal: “this project offers multiple programs for the community, including gathering space, performance center, and residency for visiting artists. A collaboration with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and American Friends of Le Korsa, the cultural facility is intended to complement the existing clinics, kindergarten, and farming school on site.” 

Mori considers herself a third-generation Bauhaus architect, and like the Bauhaus women who brought new dimensions of innovation and experimentation to weaving and textile materials, she integrates Annie Albers’ ideas of structural principles and forces of weaving into the program and structure of Thread. The project takes inspiration from material use, local building techniques, the geometry of African clay and thatch houses. Combining the low tech with the high tech, the parametric curvature of the oval apertures, allows for a roof with multiple functions were daylight highlights tradition and innovation.

Toshiko Mori creates a sustainable architecture through a careful dialogue of local materials, hand crafted and constructed by the community, the use of recycled materials, and bamboo cultivated in the region. The 2 large ovals open the space to the elements and community gathering and light itself becomes a key component of the program: from the inventive use of staggered compressed earth brick work, inspired by local woven walls that allow for light and ventilation, and protect from sandstorms, to the use of a porous light-weight straw roof that allows for the filtering light and collection of rainwater, as well as shade and the creation of bioclimatic cooling, to the protective membrane that protects water harvesting from daylight,

As Toshiko explains, the survival of a community does depend on excellent design. The structure not only provides a large percentage of the yearly rainwater for a water-stricken community, but a place of exchange, education, and of resilience.

The project has received multiple awards and was nominated as one of the greatest places on 2018 by Times magazine.

By Aida Miron