Conversation with Kevin Alter

Kevin Alter is an architect, a writer, and a professor.

While actively engaged in professional practice as a partner of Alterstudio Architecture  Kevin is also the Sid W. Richardson Centennial Professor of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin where he served as Academic Director for Architecture Programs and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs from 2001–2004. A book on his work, Alterstudio Architecture: 6 Houses was published in the fall of 2014. Kevin has edited 12 books, curated 16 exhibitions, and has also been a visiting critic, reviewer, and lecturer at dozens of institutions around the world. Alterstudio has won over 100 awards including 2 recent awards from jurors of the 2016 Austin AIA Design Awards.

MA: “It must be challenging to teach and to run a busy architectural practice?”

Kevin: “It is, no question, but it is also the dynamic that informs the process. I teach because I want to make a difference in the lives of students, in the same way that in architecture, designing a home, can change the way people live their lives. I will give you an example. I was in Wholefoods one day when clients walked up to me and told me that their home, a house our Studio designed, had changed the way they live their lives. That is reward indeed, to be able to make a difference in someone’s life in a good way.”

MA: “Moving between the University and your office must necessitate switching mental gears.”

Kevin: “Academia pushes away the real distractions of the world, and at the same time teaching is about how to look at things in a different way. I teach to be supportive, to nurture and challenge and to guide. Teaching enriches my life, it forces me to be current and to be ambitious in helping to produce architects, students, who will impact the world.”

MA: “So you are ambitious for your students?”

Kevin: “Not only for my students. We are an ambitious firm. We are ambitious in the interpretation of materials we use, the ways of using materials rather than being ambitious for the sake of ambition alone. That is how I teach. To be ambitious in approach. To foster ambition to make life better through design and architecture.”

MA: “How has teaching changed since you were a student at Harvard?”

Kevin: “I wish it had changed more. We still teach in the Bauhaus model of starting out in a simple manner and building upon something until it grows. My preference would be to task students with the design of a Japanese tea house or small outbuilding because in the process they will encounter imperfection, learn about wabi-sabi, and how to solve many problems. Some of the best projects emerge from the resolution of conflicting views and ideas, of light and structure and shadows, and relationships to nature.”

(Photo: Casey Dunn. Recent 2016 Austin AIA award winning project South 3rd Street Alterstudio)

MA: “In your work there is a focus on the natural environment and on sustainability. How does the selection of materials impact the finished home?”

Kevin: “We look for materials that amplify the design. We are not looking to design for the sake of design. A successful building has to be single-minded in attitude but not to show off but to be self-reflective. In focusing on details we are looking for the extravagant as well as the intimate. My feeling is that in creating a partnership with nature, our buildings will become worn in rather than worn out and that buildings that are well done get better over time.”

MA:  “Austin has many examples of ‘modern’ residential architecture. In simplistic terms, people tend to think of modernism as being expressed by straight lines and angles, but modernism is so much more.”

Kevin: “Modernism”, as a term, is misunderstood. A “modern” way of life is understanding that modern buildings frame things differently. There’s an important relationship with the exterior. The building engages with the environment, it is connected to the exterior, and that the whole becomes part of the composition. We look for that relationship in our work at the Studio. I call it a strain of modernity that expresses serendipity.”

 

(Photo: Andrew Pogue. Bouldin Residence Living Room Alterstudio)

MA: “If there is a relationship between the interior, the exterior, and the environment would you say that modern architecture is also social architecture?”

Kevin: “Essentially, a house is a ‘container for living’, a place for social interaction both within the walls and with the exterior. There must be a dialog. Architecture provides social accessibility to material facts. A home is a social space. As architects we look to relay, to communicate through materials, the interplay of shadows and light and space, the social relationships of the home. A building should not be a sculpture or manifestation of the architect’s desire. Our job is to make things beautiful, functional, and desirable for others.”

(Photo: Casey Dunn. Hillside Residence Alterstudio)

MA: “If a house is a social environment, how important is it that an architect is in possession of social skills?”

Kevin: “It’s so important to have social skills, to communicate not only with clients but with all the people with whom you will come into contact during the design and construction phase of a job.”

MA: “What do you look for in the architects who work with you?”

Kevin: Ernesto Cragnolino is one of my partners.  (MA Ernesto Cragnolino will be honored at the American Institute of Architects Convention in Philadelphia this month, as one of the newest members of its prestigious College of Fellows) Ernesto’s unerring technical aplomb elevates our projects while our other partner, Tim Whitehill, has a fantastic compositional eye. We look for thoughtful, talented people to work with us, people who inherently understand complexity. They must be willing to accept criticism and share knowledge, and believe in the collaborative nature of ambition in regards to this office. It helps if they are funny, too.”

(Photo Chad Wadsworth. Left to right: partners Tim Whitehill, Ernesto Cragnolino, Kevin Alter of Alterstudio)

MA: “When you first sit down with a client, what are the initial thoughts about the project that run through your mind?”

Kevin: “For someone who considers our firm for a ‘bespoke’ home, for that is what it is, ‘bespoke’, a home created specifically for one person, or two people or a family, I hope to be their trusted advisor during the process. Our job is to help the client articulate their needs and desires and to produce a compelling home for them, one that emerges from collaboration. To an extent we are looking for trouble, in the sense that we must always peer around corners and attempt to anticipate how to make things better.”

MA: “What happens in the case of starting with a blank canvas, an empty lot, for example?”

Kevin: “An artist primes his or her canvas, so our ‘canvas’ is never considered to be blank. The canvas has been primed, whether that is an existing structure for renovation or addition, or a lot with landscaping, an aspect or view, a certain terrain, it is a primed canvas in that something already exists beyond the ideas the client has for the home. Together we work to create a residence that resonates. You know the feeling when you see an image and the photographer has shot something you always knew was there—you just didn’t see it before. It’s a sense of place.”

Georgina O’Hara Callan