Advocating for Culture Change in Academia and Practice

Sarah M. Whiting is Dean and Josep Lluis Sert Professor of Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and Co-Founder of WW Architecture. Sarah has worked at OMA in Rotterdam, Peter Eisenman in New York, and Michael Graves in Princeton. Prior to joining GSD, Sarah was Dean of Architecture at Rice University; she has also taught at Princeton University, the University of Kentucky, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Florida. Her work has been widely published. An advocate for culture change in academia and practice, Sarah shared some insights with us.

Sarah Whiting. Photo credit: Martien Mulder

How did you get to where you are - Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Founding Partner of WW Architecture?

I have had a hard time stopping at the boundaries of disciplinarity. For me, the most remarkable  thing about architecture and the built environment is that it affects us all in so many different ways, and that dovetailed nicely with my existing interdisciplinary interests. As for being a dean, well, no little kid goes around saying “I want to be a dean when I grow up!” But I have always been invested in pedagogy, and I have a deep interest in fostering the next generation, both those who are students and those who are young faculty.

I also feel that right now we are in a moment where schools across the world are working through a crisis, or maybe crises, of disciplinary definition, and for me, that means the question of what should be taught in the relatively short period of time that students are enrolled in design school is a really important question. I firmly believe that if you see something as being a problem, you should step in and invest your time and your energy into making changes. I’d say that there is a certain obligation to change things if you feel dissatisfied. That is a key reason why I feel continually challenged and, in ways, inspired within the academic world that I inhabit.

I also think that it is important to reach for positions that might seem out of grasp, because—while clichéd—you will never know unless you try. Don’t expect your network or mentors or faculty to do it all for you. You have to take a risk and sometimes ask for something that may seem out of reach. Maybe you will get a “No.” As an undergraduate, I really wanted to work for a Greek set designer, who was based in Paris - Yannis Kokkos. I was very interested in his work, so I wrote to him and asked him for a summer job. He wrote me back a beautiful letter saying he appreciated my interest and would love to hire me except the office is closed in the summer. It didn’t work out, but it was worth asking. Later, I would ask Rem (Koolhaas) for a job, and that time, I got it. It is important to ask, and to not be discouraged by hearing “No,” but also to have aspirations and knowing that it’s worth reaching to work with those from whom you can learn.

What challenges have you encountered along the way and how did you overcome them?

In academia, I have taught urban history, architectural history, critical theory, and design studios, so it can become hard to define a path of advancement. As an example, when I was at GSD before, I was up for promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor in Architecture. It was Toshiko Mori, who was Chair at the time, who helped me weave a narrative between all my interests and experiences that actually made sense of it all. I remain very appreciative of her clear-sightedness. Sometimes others can see your trajectory more clearly than you can. There is also the challenge of how you articulate yourself to ensure that others understand you. That is something we all have to learn to do as designers. Think of when you are dealing with a client. You have to figure out what part of you and your work is relevant to that client. Or when you are talking with someone at the city, or sometime on site. You always have to edit yourself to ensure you are reaching a particular audience. 

What policies and practices are you looking to change and where do your current priorities lie?

I don’t know if it’s so much about policy but maybe more about culture. Prior to 2020, which raised questions over structural racism and the MeToo movement, and which amplified anxieties about our economic future and climate change – even before all of those coalesced, I think design culture was already starting to transform.

There are two themes that I conveyed in my inaugural talk at the GSD. The first is recognizing how important it is to learn from others. You can never know what someone else is thinking. This fascinates me the most in this world. You may think you know someone really well but you can’t always anticipate what they are thinking. We are constantly working with others and having to negotiate that very careful platform of collaboration. I would remind people that you have to be as articulate as possible as to what you believe in and you have to listen as carefully as possible to what others believe in or want.  The second point I made was wanting to get people to slow down. That is almost impossible in today’s world but I would say that the speed of today’s world is one of our greatest challenges. Slowing down, taking your time - learning takes time. I have always tried to introduce frequent reminders that both of those things are important: explaining yourself carefully enough so that others can understand you, listening carefully enough so that you understand others, and taking time.

In terms of the GSD, we have made some changes to both specific processes and overarching school culture. Our syllabi aim to be as clear as possible so that students know what they are getting into when they enter into a class. We try to allot more time for the students to be able to meet with faculty. Separately, we are focusing on making faculty meetings more effective by having them be more conversational and less informational—you can share information ahead of time and then use shared time to actually talk things through. The GSD has also moved to a tenure track system, and that means mentoring faculty at all levels. I didn’t introduce that—I inherited it—but it is a specific shift that requires, too, a broader culture change.

The challenges that reached a crescendo last year, that I noted a moment ago, also beget culture change. Most generally, we need more attention and room for conversation as well as more voices in that conversation, with attention toward those voices and experiences and cultures that have been suppressed, ignored, or underacknowledged. That’s something that the GSD has embraced in terms of faculty, inviting more voices into their classes, juries, and lectures—diverse voices and perspectives at all levels and throughout our pedagogy and programming. I have been thrilled at seeing what faculty are doing and what students are doing. I think there is a real change happening that’s quite broad. But it’s just barely a start.

Have you found any advantages and or disadvantages in being a woman in academia or design?

An interesting question. I am a twin with a boy brother and as kids, we were always treated equally, and because of that, I didn’t necessarily grow up feeling like I was in a very gendered world. As an adult, I have worked for people --  men -- with strong personalities. I have had moments where in work environments, I have been the only woman in a team or adjacent to a team and have had to call out inappropriate “locker room joking.” I have never had a problem confronting behavior that I don’t think is appropriate. I tend to be pretty forward, and straightforward.  

There is maybe only one thing that I could point to that’s been a disadvantage. I have a very low voice and a tendency to speak more briefly. On a review, I tend to make a statement and then step back to let other people talk. Because my voice is low, it sometimes is very hard in an animated conversation for my voice to get in there. There is one instance when I was with two men who speak nonstop and were both very tall. I felt like they were having a conversation up high and my voice couldn’t get up there. So I finally waved my hands and said, “Hey!”

In meetings and juries, I try to give everyone a chance to talk. It is interesting on Zoom because you can read people’s faces and say “I think so and so wants to say something.” In a seminar I taught at Rice, I said that every student has to talk within the class and I would prompt people if they didn’t. I would just say, “I know you have interest in this area, do you want to step in at this point?” Maybe because of my awareness of this as an issue, it’s something that I really try to be conscious of in meetings and in teaching. Again, this relates to both specific moments and interactions as well as to broader culture changes in academia and in practice.

What tips would you give to emerging professionals?

 Architecture is a very hard field. We are subject to so many constraints that are out of our control. Clients don’t necessarily value what design is or understand what it is we spend our time doing. Always try to think of your audience and make sure that people are understanding what you are saying. That’s hugely valuable. Figuring out how to communicate what you are interested in and why you are trying to do something is important.

Along with that is a recommendation to be very clear and specific; know what to edit down. And that is not only in communicating with the client but generally in projects. One of the problems in contemporary architecture is that it often tries to do too much. We live in a world where we think we need more of everything. You look at most contemporary buildings that are going up and there are too many materials, too many details, too much going on. There is the sense that it must be more interesting or more sophisticated if it has more attached to it. I think that’s a commercial problem. Students always want their projects to do everything as opposed to realizing that when you try to do everything, you end up with a bad soup. If you really want it to be good, it has to be more specific and more edited. Knowing what to focus on and what you can get rid of is really important.  

I do think that young professionals are more aware of values and that is great for practice. It is my hope that practice will be moving in new directions generally, all the while reflecting on what it means to practice in our field. I was excited about coming back to the GSD because the GSD has a long-standing respect for practice, but it also can help guide better practices, better values, better ethics, better work-life balance. Again, cultural questions that I think your generation is more attuned to than mine was. And that’s a good thing. And all that can happen without giving up ambition. You have to be ambitious because we are shaping future visions of a world we want to live and work in. We are all trying to do something that will be executed when it’s built. Even a small building is a big endeavor and a big expense. I think there is a false idea that ambition has been the problem for our field. Ambition, when correctly corralled, is actually very critical to maintain.