How architecture can create dignity for all | John Cary

On a beautiful day, just a few years ago

my wife and I entered a hospital

near our home in Oakland, California

for the birth of our first daughter, Maya.

We had responsibly toured the birthing center in advance

and yet we were somehow still startled to find ourselves

in the place where we would experience

one of the most significant moments of our lives.

We were stuck in a windowless room

with no hint of the bright and sunny day that we had left.

Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead,

the paint on the walls was beige

and machines beeped inexplicably

as a wall clock indicated day turning to night.

That clock was placed above a door

in direct line of sight

to where my wife lay as her contractions increased hour after hour.

Now, I've never given birth --

(Laughter)

but she assured me that the last thing that a birthing woman would ever want

is to watch the seconds tick by.

(Laughter)

An architect by training, I've always been fascinated

watching people experience design in the world around them.

I believe design functions like the soundtrack

that we're not even fully aware is playing.

It sends us subconscious messages about how to feel

and what to expect.

That room that we were in seemed completely misaligned

with the moment that we were experiencing --

welcoming a human being,

our daughter, into this world.

At one point a nurse, without any prompt,

turned to us and said,

"I always think to myself,

'I wish I had become an architect,

because I could have designed rooms like this better.'"

I said to her,

"An architect did design this room."

(Laughter)

Despite the immense joy of our daughter's birth,

the messages of that hospital room stick with she and I to this day.

Those messages are,

"You are not at home,

you are in a foreign place."

"You are not in control of anything.

Not even the lighting."

"Your comfort, simply, is secondary."

At best,

a hospital room like this

might just be described or dismissed as uninspiring.

At worst, it is undignifying.

And I use it to point out that none of us,

anywhere in the world,

are immune from bad design.

I went into architecture because I believed

it was about creating spaces for people to live their best lives.

And yet what I found is a profession largely disconnected

from the people most directly impacted by its work.

I believe this is because architecture remains

a white, male, elitist profession --

seemingly unconcerned

with some of the greatest needs in the world

or even the relatively simple needs of an expectant mother.

Students are trained in school

using highly theoretical projects,

rarely interacting with real people or actual communities.

Graduates are funneled through a long, narrow

unforgiving path to licensure.

Meanwhile, the profession holds up a select few

through relentless award programs

focused almost exclusively on the aesthetics of buildings,

rather than the societal impact or contributions of them.

It only goes to reinforce a warped view

of professional responsibility and success

and yet this isn't why so many young, hopeful people

go into architecture.

It's not why I did.

I believed then, though I didn't have a language for it,

and I know now, that design has a unique ability to dignify.

It can make people feel valued,

respected,

honored and seen.

Now I'd like for you to just think about some of the spaces that you inhabit.

And I'd like to have you think about how they make you feel.

Now, there are places that make us feel unhappy,

unhealthy

or uninspiring.

They may be the places that you work

or where you heal

or even where you live.

And I ask, how might these places be better designed with you in mind?

It's a really simple question

and it can somehow, sometimes be very difficult to answer.

Because we are conditioned to feel like we don't have much agency

over the spaces and places that we live, work and play.

And in many cases we don't.

But we all should.

Now, here's a potentially dumb question for any women watching:

Have you ever stood

in a disproportionately long bathroom line?

(Laughter)

Did you ever think to yourself, "What is wrong with this picture?"

Well, what if the real question is,

"What is wrong with the men that designed these bathrooms?"

(Applause)

It may seem like a small thing,

but it's representative of a much more serious issue.

The contemporary world was literally built by men

who have rarely taken the time to understand

how people unlike them

experience their designs.

A long bathroom line might seem like a minor indignity.

But the opposite can also be true.

Thoughtful design can make people feel respected

and seen.

I've come to believe that dignity is to design

what justice is to law

and health is to medicine.

In the simplest of terms,

it's about having the spaces you inhabit reflect back your value.

Over the past two years

I had the opportunity to interview over 100 people from all walks of life

about their experience of design.

I wanted to test my hunch

that dignity and design are uniquely related.

I listened to Gregory,

a resident of this cottage community

designed specifically

for the 50 most chronically homeless people in Dallas.

Gregory had been living on the streets,

drifting from town to town for over 30 years.

A broad coalition

of social service agencies,

funders and designers,

created this place.

Each 400 square foot cottage is designed beautifully

as a permanent home.

Gregory now has a key

to a door

to his own house.

He describes the sense of security that it brings him.

Something he had lived without for three decades.

When he arrived with little more than the clothes on his back,

he found everything:

from a toaster, Crock-Pot and stove

to a toothbrush and toothpaste awaiting for him.

He describes it simply

as heaven.

On the other side of the world,

I listened to Antoinette,

the director of this training and community center

for women in rural Rwanda.

Hundreds of women come to this place daily --

to learn new skills,

be in community,

and continue rebuilding their lives

following the country's civil war.

These women literally pressed

the 500,000 bricks

that make up the 17 classroom pavilions like this one.

Antoinette told me,

"Everyone is so proud of it."

And then back here in the US

I listened to Monika,

the director of a free clinic

primarily serving the uninsured in Arkansas.

Monika loves telling me that the doctors,

who volunteer at her free clinic

routinely tell her

that they've never worked in such a beautiful, light-filled place.

Monika believes

that even people experiencing poverty

deserve quality health care.

And what's more,

she believes they deserve to receive that care

in a dignified setting.

People like these are invaluable ambassadors for design

and yet they are roundly absent from architectural discourse.

Similarly, the people who can most benefit from good design

often have the least access to it.

Your cousin, a homeless veteran;

your grandma or grandpa

who live in a house with a kitchen that's no longer accessible to them;

your wheelchair-bound sister

in a suburban area planned without sidewalks.

If good design is only for a privileged few,

what good is it?

It's time designers change this

by dedicating their practices to the public good

in the model of firms

like Orkidstudio,

Studio Gang

and MASS Design Group.

Their clients

are orphaned children in Kenya,

foster children in Chicago

and pregnant women in Malawi.

Their practices are premised on the belief

that everyone deserves good design.

Dedicating more practices to the public good

will not only create more design that is dignifying,

but it will also dignify the practice of design.

It will not only diversify the client base of design,

but it will also create new, more diverse forms of design

for the world.

Now, in order to do this,

my architecture and design friends, especially my fellow white guys,

we must simultaneously and significantly diversify our ranks.

If we want the public to believe that design is for them

and for everyone.

Today, barely 15 percent

of registered architects in the United States are women.

And a far smaller percentage are persons of color.

Other professions, like law and medicine

had made far greater strides in these crucial areas.

How might our shared built environment --

our homes, our hospitals, our schools, our public spaces --

be shaped differently

if women and people of color

were behind half of the proverbial blueprints?

It is not a question of whether,

but to what extent

our buildings, our landscapes,

our cities and our rural communities

are less beautiful, less functional,

less equitable and less dignifying

because women and people of color are less likely to be creating them.

As Winston Churchill famously noted in 1943

when he called for the rebuilding

of London's war-damaged parliamentary chambers,

"We shape our buildings, and afterward, they shape us."

The good news is that we can change how we build

and who we build for.

Be that a health worker in rural Rwanda,

or a birthing mother and nervous new father in the United States.

We can do this by recommitting architecture

to the health, safety and welfare of the public.

This will pay dividends.

Because once you see what design can do,

you can't unsee it.

And once you experience dignity,

you can't accept anything less.

Both become part of your possible.

One of my favorite conversation partners is my 90-year-old grandmother,

Audrey Gorwitz, from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

After one of our conversations about design,

she wrote me a letter.

She said, "Dear Johnny,

I thought the other day, as I sat in my doctor's office,

how depressing it was,

from the color on the wall, to the carpet on the floor.

(Laughter)

Now I will have to call to see

who is responsible for the drabness in that place."

(Laughter)

In the same letter, mind you, she said,

"I did call, and I got the man in charge,

and he said he appreciated someone calling him.

My doctor's office is now on the list for an upgrade."

(Laughter)

She signed it by saying,

"It is always good to express one's opinion

if done in a proper manner."

(Laughter)

(Applause)

I love my grandma.

(Laughter)

Like my grandma Audrey,

you deserve good design.

Because well-designed spaces

are not just a matter of taste or a questions of aesthetics.

They literally shape our ideas about who we are in the world

and what we deserve.

That is the essence of dignity.

And both the opportunity and the responsibility of design

for good

and for all.

Thank you.

(Applause)