We understand that we're dealing with various urban issues and struggles, and it's going to take more than just architects and designers without those problems. Welcome to our next session's One to One. I'm Amelia Taylor-Haukberg, and this week of February 15th, 2016, I speak with Garrett Jacobs, the chief facilitating officer of the Veritable Phoenix Rising from the Ashes of Architecture for Humanity, known as the Chapter Network. When architecture for humanity went bankrupt last year and shut down its formal executive functions, many affiliated chapters continued business as usual, operating independently with volunteer coalitions as they had always done.
So to rally those troops and continue the organization's mission of humanitarian and sustainable development, the Chapter Network was formed, and Garrett Jacobs, formerly an outreach coordinator for architecture for humanity, became its organizing leader. As an architect trained literally in the midst of Hurricane Katrina, and with past experience organizing for Code for America, Jacobs has big plans for the Newfangled Network. We spoke about how to continue architecture for humanity's legacy without making its same mistakes, and how to create a sustainable organization on a shoestring. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
So I wanted to start out by asking you, going from architecture to four humanity into this Chapter Network, what of architecture for humanity's bare bones will you be retaining, if any, into the new Chapter Network? How is the transition taking old structure and adapting it into a new one? Well, it's really highlighting the people and the people that kind of jumped on board with Architecture for Humanity's mission, and we're delivering their services to marginalized communities locally for the past 10 years. So the only reason that this is continuing is because there are people that are still doing the work and whatever really faltered by the closure of the headquarters.
And so the structure of the organization will be completely different. So there isn't much that we're taking from that, because we kind of identify that the strength is in the people, and it's in local designers doing work for their local communities, and creating communities amongst themselves to really just have that space to maybe challenge the status quo. And so the only reason this new iteration exists is because the people are still there. And so the new structure of the organization is just focused around supporting them to do their local work.
So the new kind of umbrella organization will not execute projects, and that's going to be a huge difference from the past organization. So what does it mean that future projects will only be located in areas that have Chapter Network bodies, I think? Correct. Well, some we're not going to be too kind of caught down with what we tell the chapters they can and can't do, rather trying to be grassroots and surface the best practices of chapters.
So some of them do like to do international projects. So if they have kind of a local brick and mortar organization, for example, in DC that focuses on redevelopment in West Africa, then through that brick and mortar in DC, then they can have a partnership and possibly do a project in West Africa. So kind of stuff like that, and it really depends on where the resources and interest is from the chapters. But the larger focus of the resources that we're going to create as a collaborative group moving forward is going to be for local designers to do local work.
So yes, the projects will mostly be in the cities where there are chapters organized. And then so from those local chapters, are the people who make up those chapters mostly volunteers or how are they then managed within the umbrella structure? They are all volunteers currently. We have only had a couple examples where chapters have raised enough funds to have temporary staff or a managing director that was paid for about six months.
And so the idea is that we build up the capacity and give the chapter volunteers resources so that they can eventually establish their chapters as local businesses defined by the needs that they've assessed locally. So right now the volunteers kind of gather and what we're putting in place is a kind of regional structure. So we're currently just wrapping up elections for regional representatives and deputy representatives for each of the seven regions around the globe. And so there'll be a little bit of oversight and guidance and support from those regional representatives and through the chapters themselves locally.
And then those regional representatives will also gather together in a body to decide kind of what the needs are at the chapter level and then make sure that those are expressed to the Board of Directors of the organization. And two of the members of the regional leaders council will also sit on the official Board of Directors governing the body for the organization. So would that mean that the final goal or the optimal end result of this would be for each chapter to be a self-sustaining business? Yes.
And what was it that happened in architecture of humanity in his previous iteration? Because a lot of the talk around the bankruptcy when it was announced last year was this kind of irony set up between the case in San Francisco, the headquarters thing in San Francisco. In the case of how difficult it was for the foundation to continue receiving funding when of course all of these other products and just the startup industry found it so easy to find funding. And there was this a little bit of justified sourness on the part of many people working such humanitarian issues and nonprofits how frustrating it is to retain funding and find a reliable source of funding to continue your practice.
So until that point, until the chapter networks can be financially self-sustaining, how will the chapter network and I know that name was going to eventually flip away and be replaced by anyone, but how will it get funding to get to that point of self-sustaining? Right. So right now we're effectively figuring that out. And in the past, the organization did charge dues for its members.
And so it did generate a certain amount of revenue. But I don't want to start doing that yet because there's still, you know, we have to build up the new organization and define, you know, what programs we're going to build out to support the members doing the local work. And so it can take a little time. And you know, I'm very aware of that and you know, kind of patient with it.
Because I know if we're going to create programs that the chapters are going to execute, they have to be bought in into, you know, the process of creating those programs, right? That's what we believe in the work that we do on the ground is that when people are involved in the design of their environment, they, you know, want to sustain them, keep them safe and invest in them. So that's what we've been doing as a network as well, that's all. And so, you know, the next six months, we have support from the Currie Stone Foundation.
And they are kind of giving us the seed funding to launch. And so with that, I'm going to just roll into fundraising mode so that we can do new assessment and capacity building for the rest of the year effectively. And then next year, we can start talking about revenue streams such as dues models or charging for certain trainings, and really get into that conversation a little bit more so that it'll have a self-defaining revenue stream to operate a pretty lean network. I mean, to be honest, it's not going to cost that much at the beginning because I'm, you know, right now I'm the only staff member and everyone else is voluntary.
And I don't have an office, you know, I bought my computer from the last organization I worked for for $250, you know, we're running a very lean ship right now. And, you know, there's a few, you know, web services that we're going to pay for constantly over the, you know, on a monthly basis. But aside from that, it's going to be pretty lean for the first year to really figure out what it is that we need to do that. The users of the network really want.
And so, we're going to be a little patient with that this year. And then, you know, next year we'll start wrapping up some of the more revenue-generating streams as well as program definitions that'll be much easier to under it again. And have there been any shifts in kind of how the organization wants to target new volunteers and new members and appeal to or try to get the word out that, you know, architecture for humanity as it was no longer exists, but its core mission of humanitarian design is continuing onward through its volunteer force. If you would like to join our force, this is how you can do that.
What are kind of the major recruiting strategies you see building out of this kind of new tone of architecture for humanity, both building on its past status and the industry, but also building up a new identity with this new chapter network. Right. So I think with this one, I think AFTH is really good with appealing to the design community. And with this new organization, we want to be much more inclusive with the type of skill sets that we're bringing into the organization.
And, you know, ranging from, you know, high school students to, you know, people that have master's degrees in sociology and urban planning and landscape architecture. You know, there's always been kind of a fringe of much different types of professionals that show up to the organization, better the chapter meetings rather. But we really want to broaden that because we understand that we're dealing with various urban issues and struggles. And it's going to take more than just architects and designers without those problems.
And so, you know, in the coming months, we're really going to figure out how to define those users and what people would want to contribute to, you know, the investigation of what cities can become as inclusive environments. And again, so just really broadening the participants involved so that we can have much more well-rounded work. And so previously before we're kind of enmeshed in your roles at architecture for humanity, because previously you were the outreach coordinator and then worked at the, at Code for America as a fellowship engagement lead. I'm wondering, specifically if you could speak a little bit about your time at Code for America and what you might have taken from that to guide and help longer role at the chapter network.
Oh, yeah. I mean, folks from America, it was like a graduate degree in technology and public policy. It was, it was a fantastic year and a half that I spent there. It was an amazing group of people.
And it really kind of opened my eyes up to the needs of cities. And specifically working with municipal partners, like you just really understand that, you know, we have, I think we have a conception of like seeing, you know, government as bureaucrats who are, you know, pushing paper and, you know, on the other side of some wall at the DMZ. But it's really, it's really different, you know, they're just people trying to make their cities a better place, you know, within the constraints that they have. And so taking those experiences and then combining them with the experience of like pulling permits, you know, for constructions that I've had to do and understanding that all of those processes are design challenges in and of themselves.
And we have to start seeing them as such and kind of approaching them as challenges and figuring out how we can make this whole system better for everyone that lives in cities and rural areas as well. So, I mean, at times it goes from America was, you know, diving deep into local government as well as working with a bunch of people who really knew how to strategize and get stuff done quickly, you know, understood the importance of partnerships and, you know, how to bring funding into the specific projects and kind of really how to strategize on what to focus on first, you know, in some of their programs. And I really appreciated that. So I wouldn't feel prepared to do what I'm doing with the chapter network now, and I'm not being a corporate America.
And I left the architectural profession in a sense and gotten a much wider view of some other ways of solving problems, you know, like in technology focusing on user needs, you know, testing things in light nimble ways to understand that, you know, people do want this service. And all you needed to do was create a little Google form and get them involved. You know, there's very small iterative ways that you can test things. And I think that that's an approach that I'm excited to bring to the chapter network and to kind of volunteerism within the design space in general, as well as a little bit of watching code for America's brigade program evolve over the past year and a half, which is their kind of volunteer network.
So, taking a lot of experience in that world as well. Yeah. So maybe speak a little bit about that as well. Like, what are some of the potential missteps or mistakes you saw in the structure of architecture for humanity as it prior existed?
And what can you do going forward to kind of avoid making those same mistakes of the past? Well, I think architecture for humanity operated, you know, very much as a kind of humanitarian design firm. You know, they were very project oriented. And, you know, a lot of the funding was just for specific project and effort.
And I think we need to do a much better job at creating pipelines for leadership, for teaching people the skills for letting them develop the skills through experimentation and through execution of real projects. And then acting as a functioning network, you know, moving from groups of really what it was isolated chapters around the world that kind of did their own thing. And the old headquarters largely kind of ignored them didn't really resource the development of the network, you know, really put much attention or energy into it. I was the first person that was hired full time to run the chapter network or to, you know, help coordinate the network.
And that was after they had existed for 10 years. So you can kind of see how they prioritize it. And now that the focus is on the development of local groups and building the skills of local practitioners to do, you know, work for communities in need, it's a whole different organizational structure. It's more of an educational organization with huge component of community organizing and amplification as we work that's on the ground.
I think that some of the big successes in the the Coast of America Brigade Program are that they communicate so much with one another and they share resources. And it's much different in the technology world because when you write a program and it's open source, someone can just like copy it and, you know, redeploy it for their own city. So it's a lot different. It's a lot more immediate.
But I think that we can start sharing those processes and stories just as well. And that'll really start getting us to be able to understand what works and what doesn't for what types of communities, for what types of environments, you know, economically, environmentally, you know, culturally like what works where. And we can start looking at those things on a global scale. And I think that's really the role of this new umbrella organization is to learn from what's happening on the ground, you know, I'm a big believer that, you know, whenever we we have struggles in our society, like the people that feel at the hardest are those that are underserved in urban areas.
And that's what we have to understand the implications of the policies that we pass from because they're the ones that are going to feel at the hardest. And so that's really what the focus of our chapters is doing is figuring out what's really needed as we develop our cities and as people are moving more into cities and rural areas as well. There's some chapters in rural areas, but it's really just identifying and listening to what people need and then figuring out how to see if design can even play a role in helping. You spoke before about the technological approach to bettering the systems by which government operates through Code for Americans, and how that kind of perhaps chafed or just wasn't as automatically the same way of thinking as an architect might approach the problem from their perspective, even if the problem isn't specifically analogous, but just to say that there's a certain way of going about things if you're trying to sell someone a piece of code that is very different from the way you would go about things you're trying to sell them in a design.
And I wanted to ask you specifically about your own past as an architect. You went to Tulane, said architecture, and were there during Hurricane Katrina in the aftermath. And I'm wondering what in your architecture education and afterwards did you identify as the frustrating points of working as an architect that made you maybe want to switch more over into this level of community organizing and working with technological solutions and that kind of engagement with policy? Well, I mean, I moved to New Orleans three days before Katrina, and that was my wake up to independence and the architectural career that I went down.
So it was a really special moment. It was a terrible moment, a very traumatic moment, but in just kind of one's formidable years, it was incredible because in New Orleans, you get a sense of community and neighborhood that I haven't found in any other city in the country. Yes. And that was really special to me.
And being able to, other than mid-city for a couple years, and being able to ride my bike anywhere in the city and become home, and I would just not like my bike. And I'd walk on my block, and I would just say hi to five or six of my neighbors and everyone would be outside and be talking. And every once in a while, I'd be like, we could get into tonight and you just kind of invite people in. And that sense of community and belonging, I haven't really felt anywhere else in the state.
And that was a huge part of me kind of understanding what design good and should be. And it was really about just developing relationships with people. And our two-way university had some great programs at the city center, which is growing, and that really enabled me to do a lot of community design build projects and really interact with business owners in different ways and really understand what they needed and work with real clients really early on. But in a context of the city being flooded because the federal levees didn't hold up because they were under-resourced.
So really, I got to understand a lot of the resource allocation implications of the built environment, of how policy affects where people live and how they live and how safe they are. And so that really caused me to question a lot of the basic assumptions that we just have going through architecture schools that you learn, how to draw, how to be a visionary, how to work on your own, how to think through ideas and put things in context and do research. It's all well and done, but in the end, you don't ever work with clients in a real situation. And I think being in New Orleans and being a two-lane enabled me to actually do that, a little bit more and actually build things.
And then I could go back every few months, I could ride by the school where we built a play structure and see how kids were like weaving string in between some of the things we did and really just understand how people were using what we built. And that was just an incredible introduction to design. So naturally, when I finished school, I would do some internships over the summers and just sit in an office and draft and be totally disconnected from the real strong effects of design or where the decisions were being made seemed to be so far away because I was sitting and I was drafting. And it was a project where a developer had already decided what they were going to build.
And we were kind of way downstream in the process. And I think that we do have insight and knowledge about how things build in this world to have more of an impact earlier on in the decision. And so I think I realized that being in New Orleans after the storm and being in traditional practice was just like, well, the interesting decisions were already made. And all the kind of conflicting conversations seem to have already been had by the time that the project got to our death.
And so I was really never satisfied at a firm because the project just honestly didn't seem relevant to me. And I also worked as a designer for a while. So that was a whole nother wild world where you're building, you know, entire buildings in a warehouse that just get thrown away afterward. So that was a pretty sad experience of incredible waste.
So I think one of the most powerful experiences that I had in New Orleans was teaching this after school program to high school and middle school students from schools all around the city architecture and design. And that was really profound. I picked the kids up at their houses, and we got to spend a weekend together kind of designing one project together. And that went so counter to everything that we had done in school.
And it really shaped my idea of participation and co-creation and working with those kids really solidified my passion for it. Because watching them present their work and hearing them talk about how excited they were about the model that they all built together, that was a special moment. And I think they really took ownership of it. And I think that's what design can really do.
But it has to be that participatory process. And so that's a very long-winded way of saying, the city and the education at the time after contributing are really shaped my approach to design in the physical world in general. So do you imagine at a later date, maybe sometime in the future, it wouldn't have to be necessarily when you were involved with the chapter network if you decide to leave at any point. But do you imagine that then one goal of the organization would be to be involved more at the level of architecture school, kind of to address the things you just brought up of what's kind of lacking in architecture education?
Yes. I think that we'll definitely have to figure out how to develop student chapters, you know, looking at, and there are a lot of schools that are moving in this direction. There are. And the field has changed tremendously in the past 15 years.
A lot more practitioners that are trying hybrid models that are working with more of direct impact missions. And so it's about amplifying their voices as well and disseminating their lessons learned and acknowledging that they're doing incredible work as well. And so I think we have to do the same thing with educational and academic organizations. And it's, you know, I think it's really going to be interesting in the next 10 years or so how the architecture, academic world kind of shift to the needs of and interests of their students.
Because so many students, I think it was like 2000 people a year signed up for this pitch after network when the old website was still up. And yes, they had an incredible incredibly well-known brand and we'll have to build that back up. But you know, just shows you that so many people were interested in this type of work and, you know, educational organizations really just need to shift and understand that, you know, our way of practice needs to shift because the way that we're taking in information, the way that we're working with one another in close quarters in, you know, dense cities is changing. And so we have to change the process by which we deliver our services as well.
And I think, you know, taking model, like taking models from engineers that have borders that have professional chapters as well as student chapters. And I can really see the schools really see the benefit of their students joining, you know, E.W.D. chapter because they become much more well-rounded professionals. And I think we need to be able to show the same thing and provide the same support, you know, within an academic setting.
The one thing that I will say is a little bit about is that, you know, students tend to leave the cities that they go to school in. And this is not, you know, this is not the case for all academic institutions for sure. And especially, you know, the community college level, which is where I think I'm personally more interested in getting involved, is because people stay, you know, where they're in school. And when you're doing community work, it's really about building relationships with the groups that you're working with and sustaining them long-term.
And so finding ways to do that in academic setting where people are staying in the cities that they're building relationships in is really important. So to round things off, can you give me a loose idea of what the most pressing concerns are for the organization right now and what your plans are for the immediate future? What is the number one thing you're going to try to address right now? Well, my marching order is myself for the first two months is two or three months is to set up the leadership.
So, with a team in place, you know, the Board of Directors and Regional Leaders Council making sure that the processes of communication and decision-making are in place so that even, you know, if there's no more funds raised after the seed funding from Curric Zone, and the organization can continue as a volunteer network. There's no reason that it's not going to continue as we have seen, you know, the bankruptcy of headquarters, you know, affected it, but in a way strengthened as well. You know, that's so my concerns are getting the leadership recruited and in place, and making sure that the decision-making processes are set and then, you know, figuring out how to identify programs and initiatives to really launch it into something that, you know, can benefit the profession. And in the end, you know, the communities of our cities.
And so figuring out how to identify those needs and turn them into programs is really, you know, as soon as we launch the organization at the beginning of March, I'm going to turn around and go straight into that, as well as, you know, fundraising to help those build good at things to do that so that we can properly identify the right programs that, you know, will help scale up our numbers. Those are my couple priorities for the next six months. And then, you know, in a lean, agile way, we'll figure out what the priorities are when we get to that six months down the road and move on from there. One second time, well, we definitely are really excited to know that their basic tenets and ideas and goals of architecture for humanity are going to be continued onward and that there will be a place where people who are still interested in doing this type of work and join and get involved.
So, Garrett, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and what's happening with the chapter now. Of course, immediately, thanks for covering it. It's going to be an exciting road ahead.