A Better Way: MKCA's Michael K. Chen on Research, Prerogatives, and Community
Portrait of Michael by Max Burkhalter
By Julia Gamolina
Michael K Chen is principal of MKCA, an architecture and design firm based in New York City that provides innovative and superbly crafted work for clients seeking thoughtful and well-considered design. The work of the office has been profiled and exhibited internationally for its forward-thinking aesthetic and innovation and has been featured in numerous publications in print and online, including The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Architect, Dwell, Interior Design, and Abitare. As a faculty member at Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture, he teaches research seminars and design studios, exploring the intersection of public policy and speculative design strategies. Michael’s writings have appeared recently in Bracket, MAS Context, and Urban Omnibus.
In March of 2020, Michael co-founded Design Advocates, a network of independent architecture and design firms collaborating on pro-bono projects for small businesses, institutions, and organizations that serve disadvantaged communities to help them adapt their spaces and operations to adapt to COVID-19 and beyond. In his interview with Julia Gamolina, Michael talks about the research foundation for his practice, and what balance means in his life, advising those just starting their careers to make work you believe in.
JG: How did your interest in architecture first develop?
MKC: I honestly don't remember a time when I wasn't interested in buildings and cities. I was one of those children who play with blocks and take ceramics classes over and over, and I used to spend hours and hours as a child drawing houses and other things. There was an epic drawing of a civilization populated by racoons that I made, drawn on perforated 80's printer paper that papered my room one year. That sort of thing. I told my parents that I wasn't sure what to study when I was applying to college, and they were like, Aare you kidding me?"
Walk me through how you got to what you’re doing now.
I came out of grad school at Columbia into a post-9/11 slump and was really fortunate to find a job in a large firm that did cultural work, but I quickly learned that the environment of a large office wasn't for me, so I applied for a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and was lucky enough to win. Once I came back to New York I was doing small projects with a partner and later on my own, and I was teaching studios and seminars at Pratt.
There were several years around 2008 when I really put a lot of energy into academic pursuits - writing, doing research, trying out design strategies with students - and unbeknownst to me, that experience was incredibly foundational. The balance of working with individual clients and also working together with and really caring for students formed the backbone of the practice when I won quite a large townhouse project in late 2011 and started MKCA. The early years of the office were so much about putting research and design thinking that I'd been working on in an academic setting into practice: speculations about data visualization, ecology and biophilia, and digital to craft processes, and the early team, many of whom are now helping to run the practice, were drawn from a pool of exceptional former students.
“...mentorship and teaching is in no small way about showing students and emerging professionals how to create community amongst themselves and to use community as a way to lift each other up. It’s also about helping our peers with the same.”
Who mentored you along the way? Who/how do you mentor? How do you choose who you mentor?
I had wonderful teachers at Berkeley, where I was an undergrad, and at graduate school at Columbia of course and many of them were incredible influences; but I was also at Columbia uner Bernard Tschumi, and there was at once a "kill your mentors" kind of attitude, meaning that the there was an interest in moving toward new ways of working and thinking, and there were also a great number of young faculty who had been empowered to do and try new things. It was incredibly exhilarating. Evan Douglis, who had been one of those young faculty at Columbia when I was there, took over the program at Pratt in the mid-aughts and invited me to teach there. I was in my 20's and was named a thesis critic and one of the coordinators in the first year. That period, and to a degree the graduate school experience at GSAPP was a bit like the inmates running the asylum, but especially at Pratt, there was such a strong need to rely on your peers and to help one another because I think we were all a little out of our depth. I had seen that modeled at Columbia where it was the young faculty who were clearly looking at each other's work and pushing each other and each other's students, and where we felt collectively like there was a new project for architecture that we were working on as a community.
Those experiences really inform my attitude about mentorship in general. For one, I think that mentorship and teaching is in no small way about showing students and emerging professionals how to create community amongst themselves and to use community as a way to lift each other up. It's also about helping our peers with the same. Professional mentorship feels so special and exclusive because only a few people actually get to develop a meaningful mentorship relationship with someone more senior in their field. I've always relied much more on my peer group for advice, help, and wisdom. Aside from academic contexts, my most significant mentoring opportunities are in our studio, and I'm a firm believer in creating an environment where everyone has a voice and the ability to have their ideas heard and to advance.
In addition to your identity as an architect, tell me what other identities you feel you hold.
I identify as queer/gay, Chinese American, and cis male. Also Husband, Doggo dad, Son, Brother more or less all in equal measures.
Michael in his favorite place, the Marin Headlands.
With this in mind, how do you integrate everything that you do, into your life? What else do you do, outside of your work in architecture, that makes you who you are?
I have excellent work-home balance, but lousy work-life balance. That's my choice. I want everyone in our studio to have excellent work-life-home balance. I think that as a principal with my name on the door, it's my prerogative to work as much as I want to, and I quite like work. I like spending time in our studio, and I think that making a life dedicated to what you love doing is a really nice life.
In the last year and a half, I've also been incredibly fulfilled and sustained by the work of Design Advocates, the nonprofit that I co-founded to organize independent design studios around pro-bono service to small businesses and nonprofits adapting to the pandemic to advocate for design and equity, and to serve the public good. It's been a real challenge to balance that effort with the work of the studio, but it feels important and is so incredibly rewarding. My husband and I also really enjoy cooking and hosting dinner parties.
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far in your career?
We've weathered the financial crisis, a fire that destroyed out studio, and the pandemic, but I am extremely aware of the privilege that I have as a principal and business owner. My challenges are not challenges. I do think that learning how to have an office and to make sure that it aligns with one's values and ethics is a worthy challenge and one worth dedicating one's professional life to. I do try, and know that I can always do better.
“I heard Billie Tsien talk about how being an architect can be a wonderful life once, and I’ve really tried to take that to heart and work to make sure that the people around me experience the same.”
What do you think needs to be done further to help women advance in the field? What do you do in your every day work to do so, and what would you encourage all of your peers to do as well? Who is an architect that is a woman you admire?
So much. Women deserve allyship, opportunity, and mentorship from everyone in the discipline. I have and sister who leads a major anti-trafficking organization and a husband who works on women's rights and reproductive freedom at the ACLU, and I hold them as models that I try to live up to. In my everyday, I and our team do work and talk about how we can eliminate implicit bias in our interactions with each other and our collaborators.
Our Design Advocates work has been really interesting too because we consciously try to explore and model more equitable ways of working that are organized around partnership, listening and consensus. Fauzia Khanani, Abby Coover, and Jane Lea my fellow D/A board members, teach me so much about balancing making excellent work, motherhood, teaching, equity, and a commitment to social justice, and I'm just so inspired and in awe of them. Two current collaborators, Margie Ruddick and Claire Weisz are also people who I endlessly admire and from whom I've learned a lot.
What’s the best advice you’ve gotten along the way? What advice do you have for those starting their careers?
I heard Billie Tsien talk about how being an architect can be a wonderful life once, and I've really tried to take that to heart and work to make sure that the people around me experience the same. For me, that means making work that we believe in and that we believe has integrity, never taking work exclusively for money. treating everyone around me with respect, and making sure that our work helps to advance our values. I think those are the most important things for emerging designers to know. I once heard another notable architect explain how "architecture must be congenial to power." That's about the most vile expression I can think of, but it's one that so many of our peers perpetuate because they chase opportunity and advancement above other things. I think there is a better way.