Does Collaboration Work?

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Bringing together a number of design celebrities, among them Greg Lynn, UN Studio, ForeignOffice Architects (FOA) and Kevin Kennon Architect, United Architects (UA) was established tocreate a collaborative proposal for the 2003 competition for a new World Trade Center.Invoking the name as well as the intentions of what started as a similar collaborative formationby established actors and film-makers in the 1940s (United Artists) to challenge mainstreamcorporate power, UA attempted to offer more visionary alternatives to the expectations oftypical mainstream architectural solutions. Kevin Kennon here presents an insider’sperspective on the UA collaboration and employs his unique history, including his formerpartnership at Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) to raise important questions about collective designin terms of authorship, identity and practice. Central to his observations are the differencesbetween the efficiency models of corporate teams and truly collaborative endeavours.

In architecture circles it has become fashionable to use theterm ‘collaboration’ to such an extent that it risks beingoverused, and thus becoming meaningless. Its use stemsfrom the undeniable fact that architecture is not a solo act.Yet the mythology of the architect/hero seems to reside in analmost Homeric image of raging individualism – HowardRoark as a modern Achilles. The media feeds this image bydemanding ‘stars’. As the pantheon of architects becomesever more stratified, those left out or who have yet to arrivehave clung to the word ‘collaborative’ as an anchor in asurging tide of oneness.

Yet the problem with the idea of collaboration as aconceptual anchor for rising architects is its very diffuseness.Collaboration has come to mean both an anti-heroic effortthat acknowledges a collective’s ability to conceive andproduce meaningful architectures and, paradoxically, a cravencorporate sameness to be ‘all things to all people’. At its best,collaborative practice can achieve a sum greater than its partsand result in true insight and innovation. At its worst, it isused to exploit another’s talents and resources behind thefacade of ‘collective cooperation’. It is not uncommon fordesign architects to disingenuously claim they are‘collaborating’ with executive architects when they are in factcodifying a hierarchical, often one-sided, relationship.

Most clients are somewhat bewildered by architects, notknowing what to make of our profession. The notion of acollaborative team of architects working on theirmultimillion-dollar project does not usually allay suchbewilderment. Most have heard aphorisms like ‘a camel is ahorse designed by a committee’. Clients are looking forleadership and management as well as creativity when theyhire an architect. This is a fundamental problem in marketingcollective design.

When trying to sell ‘collaboration’ to the potential client,architects very often try to use the jazz analogy – a group ofexpert musicians who play together in an improvisatory way,even allowing for the occasional solo. Some architects go as faras to say the client becomes a crucial part of this architecturaljam session. Yet architects fail to understand that most clientsare afraid to improvise and are instead looking for greatersecurity. The jazz analogy is not very effective with potentialclients; however, it is useful to describe an ideal relationshipbetween design architects working collaboratively, implying akind of loose structure built around play and a collectivestriving for a unique ‘sound’.

Whether we like it or not, the media seems to requireheroes to carry forward its cultural myths. Yet rather than theHomeric Achilles/Roark ideality, it would far better serve ourprofession to promote the Virgilian paradigm of Aeneas – thehero who puts his self-interest aside for the greater good of

the community. What is missing from our current discourseon collaboration is a reintroduction of the concept of‘collegiality’. Collegiality is the moral and social glue thatconnotes both respect for another’s commitment to acommon purpose and the ability to work towards it. Theanswer to the perception of ‘star’ architects as out-of-controlnarcissicists is not to propagate a purely anti-heroic othercalled collaboration, but rather to reinstate a more nobleposition of the architect as a kind of public servant that ismore inclusive of a collaborative approach. To be clear: theidea of collegiality needs to cleanse itself of some latentpaternalism, but it does provide a kind of moral compassnecessary to make collaboration work.

I have a long personal and professional history withcollaborative design. My father, Paul Kennon, was thepresident of CRS Architects from 1975 to 1990. CRS was a largecorporate firm founded on the principle of ‘team architecture’,and one of the first postwar architecture firms to recognisethat increased specialisation of the profession would requirenew, innovative ways of working. The practice adopted a sportsanalogy of integrating specialists into a squad, where thearchitect was the quarterback. The ‘team’ was an inclusiveapproach that required an elaborate playbook andmanagement to ensure delivery and coordination of ever morecomplex building systems. The team model was so successfulthat it has become the basis for most large-scale corporatepractices today. But the team model is not a true designcollaborative as the quarterback still calls the plays. As risk-management techniques have been applied to guiding theteam, the leadership role has increasingly been dominated bythe project manager and less so by the design principal. Thisdevelopment allows the client to more readily accept a teamapproach, while also ensuring mediocrity.

By the time I joined Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) in 1988, just afew years out of graduate school, the team approach had beenfully codified and adopted. KPF placed a greater emphasis ondesign than most corporate firms at the time, and in thisenvironment I quickly rose to become design partner by 1997.The practice’s team model seemed to be less like a sports teamand more like the ‘Team Volvo’ method of componentassembly. In designing a skyscraper, KPF would divide a largeteam into smaller separate subteams organised by buildingcomponent. While efficient in practice, some of the results ofthis compartmentalisation could look all too similar. Thus, thework of the various lobby teams throughout the office seemedto have more in common with each other (both conceptuallyand stylistically) than, for example, the exterior design of theirown project. The finished result often not only lacked cohesion,but propagated an insular set of office-wide references thatdiluted innovative thinking and homogenised the brand. The

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United Architects, World Trade Center competition entry, New York, 2002 From the earth to the sky, the entire World Trade Center site would be both a monument to the past and a vision of thefuture. The memorial experience begins with a descent below the ground into the sacrosanct area around the vastWTC footprints. From this great depth, visitors look up through the footprints of the towers to the new towers.

other problem at KPF was that there was very little by way ofcollaboration between the design partners. I had a verydifferent view about how to create meaningful architecture.

During my last year at KPF, in 2001, I participated in one ofthe most important and illuminating collaborations of mycareer when I led the KPF component in a ‘star-studded’collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, Cecil Balmond and Toyo Itoin an invited design competition for the East River Con Edison

site just south of the United Nations (UN) headquarters inNew York. The historical significance of this project and,specifically, our proposal was how much it prefigured latermegadesign collaborative competitions, particularly the WorldTrade Center International Competition for Innovative Designof 2003. Since I was a student at the Institute for Architectureand Urban Studies, and Princeton University, I had always hada particular respect for the work of both Koolhaas and Ito. Iliked the fact that they were not afraid to take on large-scalecommercial commissions without losing their critical edge. Inpractice, however, the Con Edison collaborative, called UN-City, devolved into a competitive clash of cultures thatresembled nothing less than an errant architecture studiowith overcaffeinated students vying to please a charismaticstudio critic. In this kind of environment it is easy to producecool stuff, but far more difficult to create deliberativeinnovation. Yet despite this we did manage to develop twovery interesting live/work building prototypes.

The UN-City experience profoundly altered my perceptionof the creative limitations of KPF. After witnessing first-handthe destruction of the Twin Towers from outside mydowntown apartment, it became clear to me that I could nolonger continue to work in a corporate environment. At agathering of architects organised by the Architectural Leagueof New York on 25 September 2001, I spoke out against theself-serving behaviour that bordered on ‘ambulance-chasing’of many of my colleagues. I argued that rushing to rebuild inthe ‘business-as-usual’ manner of the New York architecturalestablishment would be a colossal mistake, as no one had asyet understood the meaning of the event.

Needless to say, this candour put me on a collision coursewith my partners at KPF. Having accomplished a great deal asa design partner, I became committed to the idea ofvolunteering my time and talent in helping to rebuild my cityin whatever way I could. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11,Ground Zero became New York’s biggest destination. Swarmsof people felt compelled to view the destruction first-hand.Whether their motives were good or bad was irrelevantagainst the all too human desire to make sense of thesenseless. The experience was both chaotic and vulgar, and

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United Architects, World Trade Center competition entry, New York, 2002Study models showing how the project does not provide a single image as its identity, but a shifting field of relationsdepending on one’s location in the city, just as United Architects’ identity is one of collaborative mobility.

This conceptual sketch by Kevin Kennon shows a concept that allows a towerto lean and connect while following the practical requirements of maintaininga constant 14-metre (45-foot) core perimeter planning dimension and anidentical modular floor.

required that something be done immediately to allow peoplea more dignified way to grasp the enormity of the destruction.It became clear to me that a simple elevated platform couldallow everyone such a dignified way to bear witness.

Over dinner at the Odeon, a few blocks north of GroundZero, David Rockwell, Liz Diller, Ric Scofido and myself formeda collaborative around this idea. We were able to present thisto Mayor Giuliani, who quickly acknowledged its importance.He gave us a schedule of a hundred days to complete thedesign, raise the money and build the platform. He also gaveus unprecedented access to the myriad public agenciesrequired to approve the project. What was both remarkableand humbling was the eagerness of so many who were willingto donate time or money to our cause. David, Liz, Ric andmyself waged the equivalent of a ‘ground and air campaign’that resulted in a simple structure visited by over a millionpeople in its short life of six months.

In the summer of 2002, one of the most remarkable eventsin New York City’s history occurred when a group of citizenssoundly rejected the uninspired master plans for the WorldTrade Center put forward by Beyer Blinder Belle – almost the neplus ultra of establishment practices. What was almost assurprising was the resulting International Competition forInnovative Design, in which six proposals were selected from afield of 650. The majority of these responses came fromcollaborative teams including United Architects (UA). Consistingof Foreign Office Architects (FOA), Greg Lynn FORM, UN Studio,Reiser + Umemoto RUR Architects, Imaginary Forces and KevinKennon Architect, UA was founded on the principal ofcollegiality. Its principals had all previously worked with eachother in some capacity and, even more importantly, we werefriends before we came together. No single vision dominated,but, rather, our different ideas coalesced around a syntheticprocess that incorporated the best ideas.

During the World Trade Center competition, we worked toachieve a critical understanding of the realistic processes that

govern tall buildings – interior space planning, wind loadresistance, vertical circulation, safety and security. The essentialgenetic code of the proposal, as for all tall buildings, is thatindividual floor plates are organised on a 1.5-metre (5-foot)module with an ideal depth from the elevator to the outsidewall of 14 metres (45 feet). Few realise how much the design ofoffice skyscrapers is governed by optimising internal planningrequirements. Our respective expertise allowed us to rethinkthe standard parameters and apply them in a new strategy ofinterweaving individual towers into one. The result is amutating series of floor plates that spiral around a central corebut retain the orthogonal modular consistency that achievesthe fungible planning requirements of the commercialmarketplace. The design of each individual tower in our WTCproject represents a mutation of the tower’s genetic code thatretains the 1.5-metre (5-foot) module and the optimumplanning depths but uses an exterior braced-frame structuralsystem that allows the individual floor plates to be reconfiguredto capture more natural light and dramatically multiply thenumber of exits, yet retain the standard net-to-gross efficiencyratio. This innovative methodology gave us the freedom todesign a new kind of skyscraper that can lean, touch and twistwithout sacrificing internal modular efficiencies.

Perhaps the question ‘Does collaboration work?’ would bebetter rephrased as ‘How does collaboration work?’ Moreacademic and practical consideration is required tounderstand the complex social, professional and creativeinteraction of collaboration if the experiment is going tosucceed. Beyond this there remains the very real problem ofhow to brand collaboration so that clients can see the benefitsand become comfortable with the process. And finally, truecreative collaboration, like a marriage, requires both hardwork and an abiding respect for others. It requires both aselfless maturity and, paradoxically, a child’s sense of play. 4

Text © 2006 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Kevin Kennon, United Architects

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United Architects is a multidisciplinary, multinational team that includes someof the world’s most innovative young architects, planners and designers.

At 240 metres (800 feet) in the air, an immense 18,580-square-metre(200,000-square-foot) ‘city in the sky’ connects the towers with an educationalcentre, gardens, shopping, cafés, a sports centre and a conference centre.