Great Buildings

In the pandemic wear|haus started a segment called ‘haustler highlight.’ The segment was a way stay connected as a community and learn more about who we all were in and out of the haus. I remember one of my sisters commenting after the third or fourth haustler interview asking “does anyone normal go to wear|haus??”

It’s true. Just a few of the haustlers highlighted were bakers, painters, musicians, advocates + change makers, designers…all in their spare time!

The people I meet every day continue to blow me away with their work in and outside of the studio, so this month I wanted to sit down with one such haustler and ask about her work in Chicago and her latest achievement- co-writing a book (casual)!

Jess: What is your job. What’s your role? What does Alissa do?

Alissa: For almost 15 years I've worked at Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design firm led by Jeanne Gang. In line with Jeanne's interests, our office has a strong academic/intellectual side--so in addition to designing and constructing buildings, we also pursue our own research and writing projects, and create books and exhibitions. Those are the projects I lead as Principal of Publications and Exhibitions. My team and I also work directly with our design teams to help communicate their work and concepts. (Architects are experts at thinking and creating spatially, but they're not always the best at verbally explaining things.) It's hard, fun, and endlessly interesting to try to translate architectural ideas into words.

Jess: What is your crowning achievement (so far) in your current job?

Alissa: I've been able to work on so many cool projects, it's tough to pick a favorite. There are also a lot of amazing and unexpected people, ideas, experiences brought into my life because of my job. (Including my husband Chris!) It feels like a flowing stream of work and life that's carrying me along. And I like not knowing exactly where it's going next.

One project that was really important for me is Stone Stories, a research and exhibition project that was part of the International Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018. It examined the history of a cobblestone river landing in Memphis, Tennessee, during a time when the city had just taken down two Confederate monuments--also made of stone--from its public parks. We did a lot of community interviews as part of the project, to understand how people were feeling and to learn more about the different ways they were using their unique talents to make positive change in Memphis. We transformed nine of the cobblestones to reflect each of the nine people we spoke with; we also brought 800 plain cobblestones to Venice, so exhibition visitors could walk on this mini-landing and reflect on the meaning of this place and how it could become a renewed, inclusive public space in Memphis. How could the stones take on a new history? I learned so much doing this project and I will never forget the experience of meeting these nine people and trying to do justice to their stories and their city on a world stage.

Jess: What’s the name of this book and what is it about?

Alissa: Jeanne's new book, which just came out this spring, is The Art of Architectural Grafting. It draws on the horticultural practice of grafting--where you attach a new plant to an older one so they can grow as one, with desired characteristics--to propose a new architectural concept for adding on to existing buildings. It sounds very specific, and it is! But I promise it's interesting, even if you're not an architect. I helped Jeanne with a lot of the research about horticultural grafting, which is an ancient and super fascinating practice.

Jess: Why write the book? Who do you hope it reaches and what impact do you hope it has?

Alissa: Architecture is facing a huge, urgent challenge right now, just like every industry, to radically reduce its carbon footprint. The book's main goal is to share this intriguing "grafting" concept--a creative spark--that makes architects feel energized and inspired to take on more projects that reuse, adapt, and add on to existing buildings. This is critical environmentally, because improving and keeping in use the buildings we already have saves so much carbon (50-75% in fact!) compared to demolishing and building new. I think non-architects will be interested in the book, too, because it's written in a very accessible way and ties in many different fields. Jeanne also sprinkles in some personal reflections that help explain why she cares about these issues, and how she understands the relationship of nature and architecture.

Jess: Why should we care about sustainability and architecture? 

Alissa: Architecture is part of the fabric of our daily lives. It affects our human experience and well-being, whether we notice it or not. And great buildings can bring us together, light us up and make us think and feel differently about what's possible. "Sustainability" is such a bland word, but I like to think about it as a group project of letting go of all the extraneous junk we've built up around us, so we can come into closer relationship with each other and the incredible planet where we're just one species. It's the change we have to make if we want to keep existing here.