CMC: There are such vast differences between creating a university building, a museum, a center for the performing arts, or even a police station—all of which your company has done.

So when you go to the drawing board for the first time on any given new project, what's the first step—the first question that has to be answered?

RVM: Many times we like to turn the questions back to the users because when we start a project we're given a program of spaces anticipated for the building, a list of users, and functional requirements … But we always like to go back and get at the essence of—the aspirational character of—the building: the thing that is hard to put on paper, but in order for a project to be successful as architecture, needs to be communicated by the building very clearly. And that includes what the campus is, its history and tradition, but also what it hopes to be.

And what the Kravis Center proclaims, hopefully in an engaging and inclusive but also very optimistic fashion, is the aspirations of the College in the 21st century as it grows.

So the first question we came to on this project was: What does this building want to say about the aspirations of CMC? And how does it express what the school is to a visitor who comes here for the first time?

CMC: It's obviously clean, sleek and modern. But what other words would you choose to describe the Kravis Center design?

RVM: You've picked up on this notion that it's fairly restrained, but contemporary. Something we recognized when we began designing on this campus is that although the buildings are not all the same, the college has been developing a very thoughtful master plan that actually guides the growth of the campus over time. And one of the critical points is how it talks about new structures not mimicking what's been done before, but rather picking up on the significant aspects of the existing architecture—things like color, material, and proportion—even the fact that most of the campus is fairly low-rise. It is, for the most part, only a couple of floors. And it has the most fantastic trees!

Rafael Viñoly-Menedez (far left, front), and team, in the Los Angeles-based offices for Rafael Viñoly Architects PC, New York. "There are days that are difficult, but there are also days when you sit and think, I'm drawing on a piece of paper and building a little model of something for someone," Viñoly-Menendez says of the charm of his work. "And in many instances, that client has entrusted us with hundreds of millions of dollars to create something for them … My work is not repetitive, and it's certainly never boring. And part of that is because we're lucky enough to work on a great variety of building types."

"There isn't a very well developed understanding of the way we work, which is trying to do something that is, at the core, socially conscious—and is fundamentally about human interaction," Viñoly-Menendez says about architects.

That's something that new buildings within the campus should be respectful of, and it has been at the forefront of this design: a real desire to seamlessly integrate what is, in terms of square-footage and area, a very large project for the campus. It's something very difficult to accommodate on a site of this size, and we tried to do it in a way that keeps the massing and the bulk of the building for the most part within the two-story height of the adjacent structures. Only when we get to the very west end, and we're facing across Columbia at Honnold Library, does the building rise to four levels.

There's also the idea of the building having transparency, so that there is a sense of the activities within being visible from the outside—and not a place where faculty are hidden away behind a curtain. This is a climate where there's a great opportunity for light and air to be brought in. And it's also important, I think, for those looking from the outside of the building to have a glimpse of the life within, and for the people inside the building to have a connection back to the natural environment, which is really what—from a visitor's perspective—sets Claremont McKenna apart: its tremendous landscape.

Something else we have to consider in designing the Kravis Center is that, while this will be a very transparent building, there is also a concurring need for privacy from the users. In creating spaces for universities, faculty members each have their own well developed personal preferences and it's fascinating to see how, for one faculty member, having a constant view and light coming in are incredibly important. And for another, the ability to close the shade for privacy is equally important. So these are criteria that we balance as we design the building: how it utilizes interior space and how those spaces relate to the exterior spaces as well.

CMC: How many alternative designs of the Kravis Center were designed as part of the proposal?

RVM: The initial concept was actually a building that had two wings on the north and south, and aligned with the Roberts buildings. And there was open space between, covered by a giant pergola, that was an open entry to campus. That's something we ended up abandoning because it was felt that the campus green sort of spilled out all the way to the library. We wanted the Kravis Center itself to become the "Gateway". But we have tried to retain that sense of openness, and the idea of filtering through into the campus while creating a defined "edge" along Columbia Ave.

CMC: When any building is constructed, the architect must pay attention to how that building utilizes its space—from where it's placed to how its proportions will be viewed from different angles (including lines and landscaping).

Can you briefly describe what was essential in designing the Kravis Center in those terms?

RVM: There certainly is a balance in creating outdoor spaces that are well proportioned. Particularly with those on the upper levels, it was critical that there be a visual connection between people at the courtyard level and the upper level terraces.

We're achieving this connection through a series of exterior stairs that is really a unique feature. It creates an outdoor circulation sequence that takes you from the courtyard all the way up to the third floor without ever having to go inside the building. I think that's a really striking design feature—this idea that you engage people, both the person who's coming with a very specific location in mind for an appointment, or someone looking for a quiet place to read or wanting a great view of the campus from the upper-level terraces.

The interweaving of these outdoor spaces and their relationship to the massing of the building and the interior spaces is the exercise we go through as we develop the project.

CMC: As you mentioned, the design utilizes a lot of glass, clear partitions, and open interior work and study spaces, creating an environment where people can be seen functioning, rather than privately tucked away behind four walls and a door.

Is this a newer architectural concept—creating those open work spaces and traffic flow patterns?

RVM: It's newer to some degree in Western architecture, but if you look at Japanese and Chinese architecture, historically, their conception of what creates interior space is very different from ours. The idea of having moveable partitions that define spaces in different ways, and during different times of day, but can also be adjusted to bring light into the building from very far outside, is something historically very well developed in Eastern Architecture.

The ability for people outside to see activity happening within a building is something focused on in Western—and in particular, American—architecture, and was pushed very heavily by Frank Lloyd Wright. Before that, there was the traditional European notion of heavier walls, and being protected and cloistered within the architecture.

For the Kravis Center, one of the critical drivers was the use of transparency, both as a way to make internal activity visible from the outside, but also to get light in the building, and filtered through to the interior. We're doing this with channel glass—a series of frosted panels placed vertically—so that light coming in at the exterior windows filters through the interior walls of offices and into the corridors. This means the corridors are not primarily artificially lit. The frosted glass is a take-off on Japanese shoji screens—this idea that you can have light coming in, but still maintain some visual privacy.

CMC: Albert Einstein once said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Would you say this quote has a place in current architecture, or specifically, within Rafael Viñoly Architects PC?

RVM: I can't recall who said it … but "making things look complicated is easy, and making things look easy is extremely complicated." For us, that's the basis for what we do. Particularly with this firm, we are very logic driven. We approach every new site and project as a distinct opportunity because each is unique. Even if we're designing a project type we have experience with—be it a lab, museum, or performing arts center—and that may have similarities in terms of function, every project has a particular relationship between that function, a defined set of users, and a site. And for us, the relationship between site and program is the generator that drives the idea that the design grows around.

We most definitely do not believe in a preconceived notion of a style or an intellectual philosophy that one imposes on a site. There are many architects who are very successful doing that … but for us, the richness and what makes the project unique to users and therefore increases the sense of ownership in the project, is to achieve something that is both simple but could only be built on that specific site, at that particular moment in time. So that if you were to take that building and plop it on a site at Princeton or Stanford or the University of Texas, it would look like it had been transplanted from somewhere else and would be out of place.

This becomes particularly important when people start practicing abroad… for example, with the recent building booms in China and the Middle East, it becomes very important how one as a foreigner deals with understanding what is unique about a local climate or culture, and how to translate that into the form of the building.

Obviously, California is still a young state; we're not dealing with thousands of years of accumulated manmade history. But we are dealing with a kind of strong cultural heritage that is the climate—as well as the native culture, and the integration of the Hispanic heritage as well. These are all influences that we try to incorporate into our projects.

CMC: Einstein also said that imagination is more important than knowledge, that knowledge is limited, but imagination encircles the world.

What is the most important skill or talent an architect can have? If so, how does one balance that with logic and a client's goals?

RVM: When I was in high school, I took an introduction to architecture class at Pratt Institute in New York and we had a couple of teachers who were very frank. One of them said, "There are about 25 of you now—12 of you will go on to architecture school, and of those, half will survive the first year." They weren't saying it in a Marine boot camp kind of way, but when you're very young, you don't know what the profession is like in detail. What I found is that the people who come into architecture usually do so against a great deal of difficulty. Most of these programs work you fairly long hours, and design reviews are in large measure an exercise in managing humiliation. It's not as straightforward as saying you have a paper to write and then scheduling time to do it. On the other hand, it can be one of the most stimulating professions, particularly because you're always interacting with clients whose backgrounds are tremendously diverse.

Being an architect can be incredibly rewarding, especially the first time you see anything you designed built—and for most people it's usually a fairly small project. When I was in high school I built a porch entry addition to my parents' house and my uncle (architect Rafael Viñoly) came to look at it and said, "Those three sticks of wood are going to be the most meaningful thing in your life. I don't care how long you practice architecture, you're going to remember this." It wasn't about an ego trip. It was a sense of wonder, that you were drawing something and now it's in there in front of you. And once it's built, it invariably surprises you in profound ways.

… Hollywood's Interest in Architects

RVM: Many people have this glamorous view of architecture. If you recall back on Seinfeld, George Costanza (Jason Alexander) often pretended he was an architect called "Art Vandelay". Architects love to see how movies portray them. And then you have actors like Brad Pitt whose hobby, very seriously by the way, has become architecture.

He has brought a lot of attention to the field and especially to sustainability, and I think he's done it in an incredibly intelligent way that says a lot about him as a person.

He's also educating himself. Before I moved to Los Angeles, I was up in Seattle and the firm I worked with was collaborating on the new public library designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Rem had Brad hanging out at his studio at the time; he wanted to see what it was like to work there, and I know he spent a little bit of time at Frank Gehry's office as well.

He was very humble about wanting to be treated like one of the bunch, and (his interest) does a lot for the profession in terms of public awareness, which is important, mostly because people don't usually know exactly what an architect does or why you need one, aside from a city or state telling you that you need plans to build your house.

There isn't a very well developed understanding of the way we work, which is trying to do something that is, at the core, socially conscious—and is fundamentally about human interaction. If you design a house, it's obviously very directly about people. But if you design a building like the Kravis Center, it's a place where a group of faculty and staff spend their working life, and where a large number of students over the course of generations spend the formative years of their lives. It's both a great opportunity and a tremendous responsibility.

Since we touched on the idea of sustainability before, and we are designing the Kravis Center to earn a "Silver" LEED rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. This is a points system that evaluates a project for doing a variety of things, some of which are, ironically, historical best practices, like using outside air as for ventilation as opposed to cranking air conditioning all day long. Some of the ratings involve the way something is built, such as whether the contractor recycles certain materials, how they dispose of materials, where they bought materials—so if the materials are produced within a certain distance of the building site you get credit as well.

Our goal at the start of the (Kravis Center) project has been to achieve a "Silver" rating, but I think we can fairly easily achieve a "Gold" rating.

CMC: Can you talk about a few of the ways the Kravis Center will be sustainable?

RVM: Sure. One of the most interesting things is the actual climate control system. We don't have a conventional air conditioning system in the building. What we have is called a "chilled beam" system that runs either cold water through—it's almost like if you can imagine a radiator with very thin pipes in the ceiling, kind of the counterpart to the radiant flooring systems for passive heating that most people are familiar with. The air is blown from the ceiling past the cold pipes and so the air temperature drops through convection—the cold air drops to ground. A typical air conditioning system actually cools the air at a remote chiller unit (often in the basement), and then you pump that cold air all the way through the building at high speeds so it doesn't get warmed up and lose its cooling properties.

The "chilled beam" system keeps the cold water pipe right above your head so the air can circulate more slowly, which means you're using smaller ducts; you're not building large air conditioning duct runs. You're blowing air more slowly which means it's also quieter. And the other thing that's great is that it allows us to control temperatures with much smaller air handling equipment than would be used for a regular system, which also uses less energy.

There's a larger cost for these newer technologies upfront that gets amortized in terms of reduced energy usage over the life of the building. The faster energy prices rise, the quicker the payback, and then you're saving large amounts of money for the life of the system.

In particular, colleges and universities nationwide are making this commitment as part of good stewardship and pledging to build and operate in a more environmentally conscious way.

As I mentioned, we're also using natural daylight as much as possible instead of artificial lighting. The use of "green" materials for the interior, such as carpeting that is not done with synthetic fibers that emit harmful gases, also earns points and credits.

Interior materials—including paints—are probably the fastest-growing side of the sustainable design industry. Again, the irony of this whole thing is that it goes back to how people used to build back when we were all building huts: using natural fibers and pigments and stepping away from synthesized and artificially processed materials.

There are other categories that earn LEED points as well, such as using recycled rainwater for irrigation of landscaping; waterless urinals in restrooms; the use of hand dryers as opposed to paper towels, etc …

CMC: What is one of the current fads or trends in architectural design, and how do you navigate through it?

RVM: There are a couple of interesting trends in architecture right now, one of the more recent is born of the influence of computer programs on design, and a trend toward "blob-shaped" architecture—more free-formed and very creative in terms of what a computer allows one to do. Unfortunately, gravity still works in a vertical direction and if you start sloping floors and walls, people get dizzy and they fall out of the building. There are some trends that appear to be more about the intellectual stimulation of the architect, and don't necessarily translate as well into the "real" world.

I think one of the great things about what we just discussed, in terms of environmental design, is that it's been co-opted by what is—in a sense—this really heartening development of things like what Brad Pitt is doing or even the success of Dwell magazine (http://www.dwell.com/), which began with the idea of what IKEA represents—that good design ought to be a part of life and that it shouldn't cost more. In fact, enriching the visual environment is the first mission of architecture. Even Target is cashing in on the idea that good design "sells".

This idea of spreading good design over the widest possible spectrum is, I think, vital. For example, the Disney Concert Hall, as wonderful as it is, is only one structure, and the goal should be not to just create these significant civic buildings, but to try to positively influence the design of every building. And I think this kind of explosion in terms of information-sharing has helped a lot. There is a tremendous deal of awareness, not just at the professional level in architecture, but between students, and people who are just interested in architecture as another part of their world, in sharing information about what's going on and new products.

There are certainly some people who look at it all and say it's just a fad like any other and it will fade in time, but I tend to see like this: If environmentalism becomes more widespread because of a few people like Brad Pitt and Adrian Grenier, I think it's great. It's something that might have come into the general consciousness through "celebrities", but it has staying power. And environmentalism is a concept that people from all different ideological positions understand. Everyone intuitively grasps the idea that you don't want to leave your grandchildren on a planet that's basically a large desert with ice storms in between. Having an increased sense of responsibility for the future is a net positive, no matter how "chic" it may be.

So for us, in terms of architectural design, increasing awareness in environmentally sustainable design is at the core of how the profession is evolving. Prefabrication is also starting to become very popular again. This is something that goes through cycles, but in particular, now that land prices have become so expensive, and especially here in California, people are having to spend all their money on a piece of land. So there's a real interest in the idea that you can bring in a prefabricated home that an architect designed and plug it in a place—build something that is individual, but comes from a kit of parts.

I think these are all very heartening trends, and again they go back to the idea of engaging architecture in a way that allows people to create their own spaces, so that they're not just out there buying what a developer is telling them they want to buy, but are more engaged in the process. They should be able to demand some choices in the design of their homes. After all, it's the most important thing they're ever going to buy.

What's interesting to me is that when you travel the country and talk to residential developers, they'll tell you they're building basically what the market demands. And yet when you go to Tucson, spec developer housing looks a lot different than it does in Miami or Boston or Minneapolis. Which means that there is a part of it that is about local climate and culture, and these are things that architecture should always strive to keep at the forefront.

CMC: Has 9/11 influenced architecture?

RVM: Yes it has. Unfortunately most of it has resulted in creating an incredible cottage industry of security experts. And the most unfortunate case of which is—even today—the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero. Here we are seven years later and we haven't built anything. There are a lot of requirements for blast resistance and security that at a certain point really do become counterproductive. You can make blast-resistant glass, but someone can always get a bigger truck and a bigger bomb. Eventually you end up designing buildings with no windows, because walls are obviously more blast resistant than glass.

At the end of the day, we should be trying to create buildings that are accessible and optimistic and express hope and not fear and paranoia. Understandably there's a great emphasis on safety and security since 9/11, but we're to the point now in New York that, when all of the buildings are completed at Ground Zero, you will only be able to access the site through five police control-checkpoints. Which is a fantastic way to go to work, right? It becomes really Orwellian.

So I think the influence of 9/11 on architecture to date has been almost entirely bureaucratic. One of the good things to come out of this is that municipalities are going back and looking at fire safety codes. It isn't as much a security issue, but it's a lesson learned from the World Trade Center in terms of how you make your exit stairs sturdy enough, and how you space them apart. All of those things are very valuable in terms of general safety, and applicable to any building. But it's when you get into the bureaucracy of designing a federal courthouse to be completely bomb-proof, for example, that you basically have mutually exclusive goals. It's not possible to make a courthouse be a fortress and not seem intimidating and unfriendly.

And unfortunately it's one of those things that tend to be retroactive. We're trying to implement design guidelines to solve a security problem (such as a bomb) that somebody redefined by flying a plane into a building.

So it's a complicated question, but I think the influence in terms of most architecture has been limited unless it involves government buildings. And then the bureaucracy is quite stringent.

CMC: In terms of architectural design, must a space be big in order to be impressive?

RVM: This is a really good question. This is something that goes back to how one designs residential units these days. A space doesn't have to be big at all in terms of square-footage. One of the things that aren't intuitive is that if you make a room taller in terms of ceiling height, you can have something quite a bit smaller and people still think they're in a bigger space. This is where the psychology of architecture comes into play, how proportion and daylight and natural ventilation all contribute to a sense of well being.

It gets to the old axiom that architecture should be about "commodity, firmness, and delight"—the idea that one designs buildings to make people enjoy being in a space as opposed to just seeing it as utilitarian. There's a size in which you feel comfortable doing an activity and there's a size below which you're uncomfortable. And there's a size at which (a space) is useless. And you see this in residential design. People build 20,000 square-foot homes and yet they can only have one living area and one TV. You can't put four television sets in one living room. We've all watched the shows like MTV's "Cribs" featuring a basketball player's mansion, and all you see is a couch, a flat-screen TV and a PlayStation, and acres of free space.

This is a question also that plays into the more sustainable approach that some developers have embraced—which is, if you build well-designed spaces that are also scaled to what a family needs, you're using fewer resources and being more environmentally responsible. And the economic benefit is that buyers will actually pay more per square foot for that, so it turns out to be a winning situation for everyone. The developer is happy because they're getting more money for their building. The family's happy because they don't have to spend the weekend cleaning an extra 5,000 square feet. And the environment's happy.

As somebody who used to live in the Pacific Northwest, when you drive out of Seattle a few miles and you start to see what logging does to the environment, you stop wanting to build anything out of wood.

CMC: If you could design the ultimate dream house for yourself, what's the one thing you'd want to be absolutely sure was included?

RVM: (Laughs). The architect's worst nightmare client: Him or herself!

I would say that for me, the one thing that is critical is some sort of outdoor space. That's something that again, historically, when we built without climate control, there were large parts of the year when you needed to be living outside—dining outside and spending your day outside because it was too hot to be indoors. And now it's become very simple to build things that have no outdoor space.

I live in an apartment now that has a balcony but not much more. So if I could build my own home it would have a nice garden and some water features and lots of plants.