53. A Pursuit of Effectiveness with Renée Cheng

“…I went into architecture for social housing, right, and I’m placing this tennis court for this guy and I’m like, ‘what am I doing?!’”

Finding your place in the field of architecture, particularly as a woman of color, can be complicated. This week, Renée Cheng, Dean of the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington,  helps us unpack how she found herself becoming a leading architecture educator, forging new paths for diversity and interdisciplinary thinking in an increasingly challenging and hierarchic world.

Timestamp Outline

1:55 Renée describes her core values surrounding communication, conflict resolution and thinking interdisciplinary 
5:45 “We deal with diversity everyday…”
7:12  Productive and unproductive political diction 
8:33 “I think there are easier ways to say, you move through the world in way that is cultural. You have been privileged if you are coming from certain backgrounds or cultures, or you have been exposed to certain things. And that privilege isn’t something you asked for, it’s not something you should feel guilty about, it may come with some responsibilities because it comes with potentially some power and some influence, but its part of how you operate in the world…” 
10:11 Agent vs. Target (Rather than Majority or Minority) 
12:48 Renée’s pivotal career moves, time at I.M. Pei, now Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
13:33 “…I went into architecture for social housing, right, and I’m placing this tennis court for this guy and I’m like, ‘what am I doing?!’”
20:16  Gap in representation in the shift from drawing to B.I.M. 
21:12   “The way people are using these BIM models, is very interdisciplinary…”
25:22  “…so i did see change…but then I thought, wait a minute. Why is this so slow? Maybe I need to do something, maybe this isn’t going to just organically change.”
26:30 Renée connects infectiveness with some of the other issues she is passionate about, like waste. 
28:19 Applying some of these ideas in UW interdisciplinary studios 
35:11 Vikram and Renée discuss the emergence of some of Renée’s values surrounding frugality and artistic sensibility 
40:09 The legacy of Josef Albers in Renée’s drawing education and teaching 
43:15 Returning to Seattle and the UW