Building for Planet Earth: FNA's Julie Torres Moskovitz on Passive House, Politics, and a New Architectural Practice
By Julia Gamolina and Vanessa Barboni Halik for Madame Architect x Another Tomorrow. Portrait by Courtney Sofiah Yates.
Julie Torres Moskovitz, AIA, LEED AP, CPHC/CPHT is founding principal of Fete Nature Architecture, PLLC. What drives her design practice is to engage in the world collaborating for thoughtful spaces and sustainability for all. Social and environmental justice is at the core of FNA's research and work.
She received her Master of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA at the University of Michigan in African Studies (colonialism and neocolonialism in Francophone Africa) and French. Her education has continued with on-going training in Passive House since 2010 including a certification training in Dublin, Ireland as a Passive House tradesman specializing in the building envelope.
In her interview for the Madame Architect x Another Tomorrow partnership, Julie talks about her focus on Passive House and advocacy, and the relationship of architecture and politics. She advises those starting their careers to go after the projects they want and to check in with themselves annually to assess values and goals.
JG: How did your interest in architecture first develop?
JTM: I think that architecture was always on the list of careers I wanted to do. The list was long, and veterinarian and archaeologist were on it too. I took a while to have the confidence to pursue architecture. I remember being in a hand drafting class in high school and thinking that I was terrible. I was the only girl in the class, and I decided to drop the course and the teacher pulled me aside and told me I was one of his best students. I just had no idea. I think even for me in the ‘80s in high school that being a girl and an architect didn’t go together so clearly. I have three or four examples of situations like the drafting class combined with the fact that no one in my family nor friend network was an architect.
How did you arrive to eventually studying it?
I considered studying architecture in college, but someone who interviewed me at Carnegie Mellon scared me by saying that I would need to be ready to be up in studio all night long for days on end. So instead, I ended up staying up all night writing papers and studying for language courses and my undergraduate double major in Colonial and Neocolonialism in Africa and French.
In the end, I like the pathway that I took to arrive at studying architecture in graduate school because I knew so much more about the world – about history, politics, writing, and languages. I was always an activist in high school and in undergraduate and by that I mean bringing in speakers to talk to students about issues on environmental justice, social justice, and the nuclear arms race. I was head of groups such as HAND – Humans Against Nuclear Destruction in high school and ENACT – An Environmental Action group at University of Michigan. I was engaged in politics and social, economic, and racial justice issues.
Julie’s portrait at a job site on an early project.
How did you get your start in the field?
Well, prior to architecture graduate school, I worked in PR/Marketing in an architecture firm to test the waters and see what it was like in an architecture office. In hindsight, it is great that I had this experience as working to win commissions and interact with potential clients is a big component of having an architecture office.
After architecture school, I got my start by moving to NYC and working for a great boutique architecture firm in Tribeca from 2000 to 2004. It was a whole new education in minimalism and I learned to detail real construction. I learned so much, but I was also immediately compelled to moonlight on my own architecture commissions.
How did your own practice, Fete Nature Architecture, come about?
I was working after hours on an addition for my parents’ friends’ house the summer after I graduated, as well as converting an old print factory in Bushwick into a sustainable residential space combined with a film and music studio. I worked on this with my roommate and her architecture partners. The commission actually came to me in a very interesting way, the client was a young woman and she wanted to work with a female architect. She explained that while she was interviewing architects, who all happened to be male, they would immediately start talking to her boyfriend even though she was the main client. She thought it may be different if she had a female architect. That project won a NYC DEP Green Apple award in 2005.
Then, our lives changed with 9/11 and our architecture offices were not too far North of the Twin Towers. In fact, I was with my colleagues that morning of 9/11 watching people jump from the towers and then seeing the towers fall right in front of our eyes. I was forever changed after such a horrific event. I also decided to have a baby. I realized that working for a boutique architecture firm was not going to work with a little baby to take care of. So, I started my own office at that point. Having a baby, changed my career but for the better. I was determined to have my own design office. I think it takes guts to have your own office and I always wanted to have one but once I had a son, I had two reasons to have my own office because it would allow flexibility in my scheduling. Low and behold, seventeen years later, I still have my architecture firm. I’ve never looked back.
“The City and the State were looking to pass legislation to help decarbonize our buildings and put NYC on a path to carbon neutrality...I realized that architects have an important role in explaining innovations such as Passive House to legislators and government agencies.”
I’ve found that big changes in one area of your life tend to create change in other areas too. Change begets change. Tell me about some of the early FNA work.
Obtaining my architecture license took a while. I worked as a designer first in coordination with architects of record. And then I eventually took my licensing exams and started an architecture firm. I also received several certificates in sustainable design like LEED and Certified Passive House Consultant.
I had some interesting projects and collaborations early on. We won a local community grassroots competition for a sustainable design for the East River State Park. That community-based project resulted in a design that won a Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2010. It was an important project because we had to present it to so many different political groups and stakeholders, and I was beginning to see the link between politics and architecture. Simultaneously, I had a connection to a Saturday Night Live set designer that led to me working with several celebrity clients on repeated projects for ten years. This kept my office moving forward.
When did you incorporate teaching into your career, and how did that further catalyze your work and your focus on sustainability?
In 2007. I started teaching at various universities part-time. First I began to teach courses on sustainability at Pratt Institute, and was able to instruct a series of courses about greening the dormitory at Pratt. This course was collaborative between the Interior Design and Industrial Design departments and Facilities and the Center for Sustainability Design Studies. We designed a prototype dormitory room with student-designed furniture systems and it was a Living Lab exhibition. This won an Actar and Storefront for Art and Architecture Total Housing award and was featured in the NYTimes. And it was around this time when I received an exciting commission for a full-gut renovation of a brownstone and a vertical addition. The clients requested sustainability as a feature but soon after said they wanted ‘Passive House.’
I bet at that point, Passive House was an unfamiliar concept.
Right, at the time, Passive House was new in the USA and I wasn’t familiar but decided to quickly learn so that I would not lose the commission. I became immersed in trainings and through the project, we not only achieved the first certified Passive House in NYC but I networked with a great community of early adopter energy-efficiency nerds and I pitched a book on the topic.
In 2012 this project that we call Tighthouse was certified as Passive House. The Greenest Home book published by Princeton Architectural Press came out in 2013, and in 2014 we won an International Passive House Design Award and soon after an AIA NY COTE honorable mention. This launched my practice in several new directions. I began speaking engagements, more teaching, and commissions that were from people who learned of our Passive House work, and public policy advocacy work. By public policy, I mean that I began to meet with politicians and groups to discuss passive house and I partnered with a Belgian architecture firm called A2M who were very experienced in Passive House. We met with hundreds of people at different agencies to speak about energy-efficiency. The City and the State were looking to pass legislation to help decarbonize our buildings and put NYC on a path to carbon neutrality. Much legislation had to pass if that was going to happen. I realized that architects have an important role in explaining innovations such as Passive House to legislators and government agencies.
Tighthouse by FNA. Photography by Hai Zhang.
Tighthouse by FNA. Photography by Hai Zhang.
Tighthouse by FNA. Photography by Hai Zhang.
After Hurricane Sandy, I was part of a cohort of small architecture firms working with WXY, a large architecture and planning firm, as part of the Build It Back Program to rebuild and elevate homes damaged by flooding. My office had two projects in Canarsie, Brooklyn. This marked another milestone for Fete Nature Architecture as we started to work on resiliency projects too.
Simultaneously with our flood resiliency work, we met a great organization called Street Vendor Project and we started to collaborate with them. I am now on their advisory board for the last five years and have put a lot of time into this amazing organization. We have worked on three projects with them envisoning programs and spaces and last year I had a Taconic Fellowship with the Pratt Center to work on greening city vending carts with street vendors.
There have been many commercial and residential commissions in between that have been great and fulfilling to work on but per your inquiry on significant moments, these project types developed into the 3 pillars of our work - sustainability, resiliency, and social and economic justice.
Where are you in your career today?
Today, I am thrilled that clients are finding us for our hyper-efficiency and design work. We are seeking more research opportunities as I love teaching and researching topics that inform our understanding of the urban fabric. We are looking for design challenges. Fete Nature Architecture is at the point where I want to pivot some attention to city and state public commissions as NYC works to rebuild for the future. I am applying to be a WBE and I hope to be able to find opportunities to work with the School Construction Authority, DDC, and other city agencies. I predict that NYC will rebound soon and reinvent itself with a new progressive slate of City Council members that are envisioning ways to create a more equitable and sustainable city. New architectural responses are going to be the result of the pandemic with new programs for work-live spaces, offices, schools, plazas. It is all going to change coming out of this pandemic and its all going to be without fossil fuels.
I also am teaching a workshop at the AIA Center for Architecture called RetrofitNOW! Reducing Carbon and Complying with Local Law 97 which is about decarbonizing buildings and planning for buildings of over 25,000 SF to avoid carbon penalties by improving their buildings with energy-efficiency measures. I would like for FNA to work with building owners on holistic approach and asset plan assessment to identify water and energy efficiency improvement decisions for their buildings.
“Running a business not just doing architecture design is a challenge. I strongly feel that university architecture programs, in addition to focusing their curriculum through the lenses of climate and social justice, should offer a course or two in business and marketing for architecture students.”
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges?
Challenges include making sure that we are doing the work that we want to work on, fulfilling work for me and my staff, and work that is meaningful for our community and the planet while also bringing in an income. I feel that the pandemic and recession we are in is really devastating for everyone and makes one second-guess what you are doing in life. I always aim to recalibrate and push towards the three pillars of my office, Fete Nature Architecture, which are sustainability, resiliency, and social & economic justice. And these are my values and priorities and therefore the focus of our work.
Running a business not just doing architecture design is a challenge. I strongly feel that university architecture programs, in addition to focusing their curriculum through the lenses of climate and social justice, should offer a course or two in business and marketing for architecture students. There is a lot to learn to successfully run your own architecture office.
What have been the highlights?
One is working with communities, such as in our Street Vendor Project, on envisioning different programs and spaces for vendors such as an exemplary commissary with training center, women vending pop-up spaces, public plaza safe vending spaces with a vendor named Dondi McKellar. Another is discovering the comprehensive approach of Passive House with its priority on energy performance and building envelope. It works with any building program and it makes sense as a pathway for the lowest carbon footprint and combined with good architectural design – why not? This has been a very important guiding principle for Fete Nature Architecture.
Finally, the people I have met and places I have been for work are certainly highlights. There have been so many interesting spaces and people and I never know what will come next. Here are some examples - I once surveyed the Iraqi Embassy in NYC. I hung out in a room with Jimmy Fallon and Richard Gere. I worked with John Lithgow on his renovation. I participated in a charette at a giant former meatpacking campus in Nashville. I climbed over a temple sanctuary rooftop to assess for solar power. I hosted a pizza party in the middle of a blower door test of our Tighthouse project. I surveyed artist Sarah Sze’s studio. I stayed at a house with llamas in East Atlanta while working on a Passive House project there. I am getting to know the Green Lake section of Seattle with a Passive House project there. It’s all unpredictable and fun.
FNA office. Photography courtesy of Julie.
Model of a passive house, courtesy of FNA.
Who are you admiring right now and why?
I believe architecture and politics are inextricably linked together, and so I am admiring people standing up for democracy and justice such as Stacey Abrams, Amanda Gorman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Elizabeth Warren, Malala Yousafzai, Emma Gonzalez, and Greta Thunberg. There are so many brave women standing up and doing the right thing.
In terms of architecture, I am interested in community-based projects. I am always inspired by the work of David Adjaye Assoc, Francis Kere, MASS DESIGN group, Toshiko Mori, Solano Benitez, and Tatiana Bilbao. And love following younger architects on Instagram especially people that I have collaborated with in the past.
To be honest, maybe it’s the pandemic and the recession but I am a bit down on the big architects that win all of the commissions. Architects are trained to figure things out, problem solve, and design. In other words, the same architecture firms should not be picked every time for work in NYC. There should be variety and opportunity for many more than a handful of firms.
I completely agree - we should encourage variety in who we select to build here. With that, what is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission?
I would love to keep pushing the envelope through architecture and public policy work to make sure that we give our best effort to not destroy the planet while also keeping our democracy thriving. I am an idealist always and so I am just embracing that – I have never lost it.
My core mission is to integrate energy-modeling and sustainability into our practice and bring the best energy-efficient innovations we can for our clients, and to push local and state government to move further on decarbonizing and a better built environment. I believe that everyone should have access to hyper-efficient buildings and especially renters. I also want to make sure that FNA stays involved in resiliency projects and futureproofing of buildings and planning for climate adaption. And finally, I want to keep working with community groups – artists, vendors, and nonprofit advocacy groups to help visualize and realize projects of different scales and to create welcoming and imaginative spaces for cultural event spaces. I also want to keep taking part in research grants and collaborations to further develop ways to inhabit the urban fabric.
“...when we plan for space travel or life on Mars – the care put into that house to be able to create a safe and durable living space in outer space is the same care we should put into what we build for planet Earth.”
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?
My advice is to strongly consider opening your own architecture firm or collaborating with a partner and opening an office together. I recommend doing some soul-searching annually to see what you want to contribute to your community and your city, and if you are on that pathway in your design practice. I see architecture as providing a place; a place for communities to feel welcome and to thrive, a place for a family to enjoy moments together, a place for students to learn in and discover, etc. And all of it needs to be done with care as I remember environmental architect William McDonough making an analogy that when we plan for space travel or life on Mars – the care put into that house to be able to create a safe and durable living space in outer space is the same care we should put into what we build for planet Earth. We have to actively take care to not contribute and to actively work against throwaway buildings and consumerism.
Another piece of advice, which I always tell myself and push for, is to go for the commissions you want and find a way to get there. It takes a lot of stamina. I run into that age-old problem that one is always building up one’s portfolio. I feel you shouldn’t not get hired for the job just because you haven’t done the exact program before. We are trained to take on design problems. For example, I have found it nearly impossible to enter the affordable housing design sector and I have tried for years. I am going to keep trying! How do you think I figured out Passive House and FEMA resiliency? The answer is by having the opportunity and then succeeding at mastering technical solutions and working with multiple stakeholders and agencies to accomplish those goals.
Finally, it’s frustrating to me how few young design firms are supported with public commissions. Trying to win a commission for an affordable housing building, a museum, a school, a public plaza - it’s so competitive! A lot of times it is the same firms in NYC repeatedly. It’s like you are under water and everyone is blocking the path to air. I believe US cities should have more opportunities to provide commissions for young firms. I mean I consider myself in that group of ‘young’ as I am still in my 40s. Architects have long careers and with my son entering college in a year, I am on to a new phase of life.
This should not deter you when I say it is competitive. There is always an avenue to go. For example, there are client commissions and if they are slow to come in then there are projects you can start on pro-bono for your community or an organization that you care about, there are research grants, and you can teach courses on a topic that you care about, etc. You can build up your expertise in multiple ways.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.