All Things Design: MDC Director Tom Fisher

Tom Fisher in conversation with documentary film director Chad Friedrichs in Coffman’s Union Theater.

Grass does not grow under Tom Fisher’s feet.  As MDC director, his recent itinerary of lectures, presentations, keynote speeches and serving as a panel moderator, in addition to teaching in the College of Design, is daunting. Deep in cold and snow of March, Tom traveled to several cities to present his critical design ideas on a range of topics. In Denver his talk titled Donald Trump: Development and Ethics, which was delivered to a rapt audience at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture annual conference, held particular resonance. The following week, Fisher attended the National Architectural Accreditation Board meeting in St. Petersburg, where he is serving a one-year appointment at the request of the American Institute of Architects

At the end of March and at the invitation of New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, Tom presented a provocative talk titled Design, Climate Change and Equity. Here, he applied the research and reasoning he had explored in two of his books Designing to Avoid Disaster (2013) and Designing Our Way to a Better Future (2016) to contemporary events. Its relevance was obvious for those living in coastal and low-lying cities such as New York, Miami, Houston and New Orleans, or for those who have been affected by severe weather or geological events whether tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, or earthquakes.

Fisher’s April schedule only accelerated. Early in the month, he provided opening remarks for an evening lecture at the College of Design by the renowned Carl Steinitz. Steinitz, a Harvard emeritus professor, is known and revered as the ‘father’ of Geodesign. Hosted by MDC, more than 50 MDC Affiliates, students and members of the public attended. A forceful lecturer, Steinitz laid out his design strategy called “Collaborative Negotiation” a process used to solve thorny urban design problems. The next day Steinitz led an in-depth workshop that explored Saint Paul’s Creative Enterprise Zone whose participants included several MDC Affiliates, design professionals, and Fisher and his students.

The following week Fisher led a 4-hour workshop on leadership and design for AIA MN Leadership Conference in Minneapolis. This annual event aims to give mid-career architects the skills they will need to lead firms and to address the important issues facing their clients and the communities in which they work. Fisher helped the group envision what architectural practice in the future might look like and what expanded services it might offer in response to the disruptions ahead.

One April highlight, was the documentary film screening of The Experimental City, directed by Minnesota native Chad Friedrichs.  Hosted by the University Libraries at the Coffman Memorial Union Theater, the event attracted a large and engaged audience. The Experimental City, MXC, was an ambitious futuristic design project whose goal was to solve growing urban issues in the 1960s. Several former U of M School of Architecture students and faculty contributed to the project development, including architect and MDC Research Fellow, Dewey Thorbeck, a vision that was never realized. Fisher led a lively, post-screening conversation with Friedrichs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye2Uju5OUrI

Later that week, for the Society of Architectural Historians’ International Conference http://www.sah.org/conferences-and-programs/2018-conference---saint-paul, Fisher delivered a Keynote address on development along the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities and moderated a discussion for the seminar Confluences: Place, Change and Meaning on the Mississippi. The nearly 4-hour session was standing-room-only with more than 300 attendees.

Fisher is also featured in the April online issue of Architect, the Journal of the American Institute of Architects. In What is Research, Really?” written by William Richards, Fisher argues that academics and practitioners define research differently, a situation which critically impacts the success of the profession and industry.  http://www.architectmagazine.com/aia-architect/aiavoices/what-is-research-really_o

Mason Riddle, MDC Communications Consultant