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V5: You have taught at a range of different schools here. What do you think of the schools in the Los Angeles area? How much time do you spend teaching?
LS: I've taught at SCI-Arc, University of Florida, Mississippi State University, University of New Mexico, Otis College, and Woodbury University. At Woodbury I did a joint project with Jennifer Siegal, where we used a sixty-seven foot trailer that was donated by the Salvation Army for a client of mine, a non-profit group. I approached Jen and we talked about doing this as a studio and we did in one summer! So I'm interested in giving back as well and this is sort of one form of it.
V5: I think that is an amazing project, I have walked through some of the Los Angeles junior high and high schools and there are all these
temporary buildings and really awful trailers set up that the students must spend six hours a day in. There is no quality grade given to schools.
LS: In the case of that trailer, for thirty-five hundred dollars, you can make these incredible things out of a very simple project with a singular move.
So things become incredibly rich with very little in terms of the form. I think of the Salk Institute, if you look at the drawings for that and you give those to a student today, and present this as one of your second year projects, you would be failed as a student. But go see the building, it is awe-inspiring. There is a difference between looking at the form and experiencing the place.
V5: I have always thought that with Bargan's work. When you look at his work in plan, it does not seem extraordinary; there are not the clues that say this is going to be an amazing piece of
architecture. Yet when you see it there is something that is just breathtaking. It is a little scary because we have to make so many
judgements from plan form and sectional form and models and it is as though someone is seeing things that we are not able to.
LS: It's hard especially if you are early in your career. Our plans of our projects tend to be pretty boring, the plan is generally orthogonal. I guess the old adage of the plan as the determinate of form for us is really not of significance or an issue. We often get times when our clients will say, can't you rotate this or do something in plan, and it's always work to convince them not to worry about what the plan is.That's not really important. It's the space that is really quite important, and the plan is just an outcome of your intentions.
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Faculty; Larry Scarpa, Wendy Bone and Jennifer Siegal.
Students;
Alex Arias, Thomas Cohen, Guillermo Delgadillo, Maurice Ghattas, Han Hoang, Chayanon Jomvinya, Thao Nguyen, Jose Olmos, James Popp, Phung Thong and Juan Uehara.
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I try to teach one class a year, although I have taught the last three semesters in a row, which is a bit too much for me.
I like the energy of being around students and students contribute to make your work better. One of the beautiful things about Los Angeles is there are a hand full of really good schools and there is the opportunity to teach in several places.
V5: Do you find your interest more in line with certain programs.
LS: No, not particularly, since my interests vary so much. I am interested in the idea at the moment and although there are many common threads in our work, my interest lies in a wider array of experiences. What I do like tremendously about Woodbury University, the students there are incredible in the fact that they are extremely hard working. Most of the students are there because of circumstance, and not because of a great desire to go to Woodbury. They are hungry and hardworking and remind me in some ways of SCI-Arc in the old days where people went there because they could get into the school. There were incredible faculty and the students were driven, and I think Woodbury is that school now.
V5: It is scrappy. (laughs)
LS: Very, very scrappy, blue collar. Bright kids and very hungry for architecture.
V5: You get the sense teaching there that for about half of the students, it is their family's first generation into higher education. They are very hard working and a little scared.
LS: Right. Maybe that's partly why I like it there too because I'm the first generation, college educated in my family. Perhaps there is some kind of relationship.
V5: Where did you go to school?
LS: I went to school at the University of Florida, and in some ways because it was the local school. My father is an Italian immigrant and most of my family barely finished high school. When I grew up, we really didn't have too many books around the house other than Sports Illustrated. I always knew from a young age that I wanted to become an architect, but mainly because my father, who worked for the post office, used to do small construction jobs such as additions. I would hang out with him and get in his way, and that's what I thought architects did. (laughs)
V5: Maybe it is what architects do!
LS: I always wanted to become an architect and the interesting thing was my father had also always wanted to become an architect, but because of having four children, it just never happened.
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