Constant Evolution: Karen Fairbanks on Focusing her Practice and Growing a Department
By Julia Gamolina
Karen Fairbanks is a founding partner of Marble Fairbanks Architects – a design-driven, research-based practice recognized for their work with cultural and institutional clients. Karen has led the firm’s work in library design and focuses on projects that include an educational mission. Throughout the development of her practice, Karen has simultaneously built the architecture department at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she is the Claire Tow Chair Professor of Professional Practice and Chair of the Architecture Department and Faculty Director of the Design Center. In her conversation with Julia Gamolina, Karen talks about supporting the organizations working towards social justice, through design, and advises those just starting their careers to trust that they are ready for new opportunities.
JG: How did architecture and design come into your life? What were those earliest influences?
KF: I was at Connecticut College for my undergraduate education,and I stumbled into some classes that led me to study architecture. The first class that really had a big influence was a class with a botanist who taught a course on our relationship to our environment. Then I ended up in a class that was taught by three professionals that was about urban development; one of those people was an architect who then taught an architecture design studio.
Once I got interested in architecture I realized there weren’t any other classes I could take there in that field. I decided to take more architecture classes by transferring to the University of Michigan; I grew up in Michigan and it was what I knew. I ended up leaving Connecticut College, studying two more years, but getting my Bachelor of Architecture.
The west façade of the Glen Oaks Branch Library includes insulated and clear channel glass as well as clear glass at the street level with the word search translated into the thirty languages spoken in this neighborhood. The public plaza offers a civic space to sit at the intersection of a busy urban street and small-scale residential neighborhood in Queens, NY. Photography by Eduard Hueber.
Visitors to the Glen Oaks library cross a translucent glass threshold in the public plaza as they enter the library. The reading room for the adults is on the lower level with daylight entering through skylights and a large two-story atrium. Photography by Eduard Hueber.
What did you do when you first graduated?
I moved to Boston with a bunch of friends from Michigan. It took a while to get a job, the economy was tough. Eventually, I got a job at Graham Gund’s architecture firm. It was a small office at the time of fifty people. I ended up staying there for three years, straight through when I went to grad school.
It was an amazing experience. There were a number of people there that stayed mentors for life that I’m still in contact with. They really showed me the ropes and I had a really healthy experience.
I love that description - a healthy experience. You don’t hear a lot of that yet in our industry, but it’s changing. When did you go to graduate school?
From Graham's office, I decided to get my masters at Columbia GSAPP. I learned that I really love the collaborative environment of work and the creative process. I really enjoy studio culture as a method of working; it’s something that is very unique to architecture. The studio was what made me fall in love with architecture, and I couldn’t imagine learning in any other environment. Studio culture also just brought together a lot of things that made sense to me; thinking about culture, thinking about design, thinking about people.
“A practice is a constantly evolving project of its own, as is teaching.”
Tell me how Marble Fairbanks came about.
While I was at Columbia, having the experience of being in one firm for three years, I made a pact with myself when I got to New York that I would work for a different kind of office every break. Every summer and academic break, I worked for a different firm and got to see the whole range of types of practices. I had some great experiences working for professors or working for a large corporate firm. After graduation I ended up working at Alexander Cooper and Partners and that became Cooper Robertson.
I worked there for a year!
A lot of the people you knew when you were there were people I knew when I was there. They have helped me through all steps of my project. They have been willing to get on the phone and give me advice. They give us feedback on how to handle certain situations. Staying in touch in this way is really fantastic.
While I was working at Cooper Roberston I had started teaching. It became clear that I wanted to teach more and I couldn’t do that within the context of that practice. So I ended up getting some small projects and Scott, my partner and husband, and I were teaching together at Columbia. When I left Cooper Roberton, he was working on his own, and we started doing design competitions together. The big step was being finalists in the Nara International Competition. That was the beginning of our practice together.
Community activism was instrumental in the development of the new Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center. The Greenpoint Community voted to use funds from the settlement with ExxonMobil over past oil spills toward construction of this new building. The building recently opened and will be fully occupied as the restrictions on gathering start to lift. Photography by Michael Moran.
Marble Fairbanks transformed the relationship of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to the street through an addition that locates the gift shop along 135th Street, with new public seating and landscape along Malcolm X Boulevard, and with integrated digital displays to highlight work from their extensive collections. Photography by Eduard Hueber.
Obviously having a practice is all encompassing in terms of what's expected of you as a leader - you are doing the projects, mentoring staff, running finances, business development, marketing and communications. It's everything. How have you navigated that and grown the practice?
Both Scott and I have been teaching since we started practicing. We have both always taught. Our practice has evolved with teaching being a big part of what we do. Basically from that we have had to figure everything else out as we go. We had to figure out how to handle all the different pieces and how to best steer the practice.
A practice is a constantly evolving project of its own, as is teaching. In teaching, we have both evolved into leadership positions. For both of us, evolving a practice and evolving a department and the leadership that is required and the collaboration and the thinking about the organization and of those places and how they work best has been an ongoing discussion.
Where are you in your career today?
Career is always evolving as well; I don’t know if I can say I’m at a single place in particular. I’m at a point where it’s become much more clear about the kinds of projects that really give us joy and sustain the office in a way that is meaningful for everybody. We have been able to truly focus our work on projects that are for the public or non-profit clients or educational work. We have become pretty clear about the things that matter to us. We feel like we can make a difference.
The same with teaching. I’m at a point where I feel like I’ve realized the role of running a department and leading and developing a curriculum is an ongoing evolving project. When I started teaching, I was an adjunct at Columbia for the undergraduate major that was originally a major at Columbia and a major at Barnard and a program at each. I was an adjunct faculty member for three years and then ran the Columbia side of the program. Then I bought the Columbia part of the architecture program over to Barnard and merged them at Barnard, which became the home base for both. The work at Barnard has been amazingly rewarding. Barnard has been so supportive of the architecture department.
“The most important thing is to not wait for the perfect moment or for when you think everything is perfectly aligned for the next job...Trust that you are ready.”
Since your business partner is also your life partner, how does family life factor into everything?
I think because I was running my own practice through my career, I was able to manage having a child. I have one son and we were able to swing that because we were running our own place. We were in charge and we were able to manage our own time flexibly.
I was also already teaching, but I found ways to make it work. You figure these things out. Parenthood made it clear to me that it is important to us in our office that we have a supportive work culture and we do have flexibility and that we do for our employees for whatever their outside interests are. We have a number of employees with young children and we know what that means. We make sure the work culture supports that and that has made a difference.
Looking back at everything, what have been some of the biggest challenges and how have you navigated through them?
It is hard to see a challenge more difficult than the current one. The moment of the pandemic has made us - in two fronts in the office and in school and managing that shift - and making sure that despite the immediate circumstances that we still managed to keep a sense of the long view. I think that is the biggest challenge of the practice - any practice - maintaining your clarity about the big picture and the horizon.
The things that are happening at the moment and they are things you can move through. It’s really important to us to have the wellness of our office well managed and to make sure that the people who are working for us have balance in their lives as much as possible. Keeping that focus through something like this is important. Also just to make sure that through the ups and downs of projects and work, we keep the kind of work that we want to do. That’s the biggest challenge, always. If you can manage that, you can address the other ups and downs that happen inevitably.
Barnard and Columbia Architecture students have an opportunity to enroll in an elective travel studio their senior year to design projects in connection to Columbia’s Global Centers or working with local Universities and colleagues. This photo is from a trip to Amman, Jordan. We have also traveled with our students to: Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia; Beijing/Hangzhou/Shanghai; Istanbul; Oslo/Tromsø/Stockholm; Mexico City; and Berlin.
This past spring Karen’s studio course, Beyond the Gates: Youth | Community | Activism, worked with two organizations that support youth in unique ways – FC Harlem and Girl Be Heard. Students developed and led workshops with the youth and, working collaboratively, designed projects to amplify their voices and to help the organizations promote their powerful work and future visions.
Who are you admiring right now?
The people in the public libraries are doing just incredible work to stay open, and to push out programming and stay connected to their communities. The non-profits that we are working with are working so hard right now to maintain the support for the people they are working with. We are actually working with two of these non-profit organizations with my students right now in a class that I am teaching. I think it has been incredible for my students to see the kind of work that is done by these local organizations.
I’m also admiring my students. My students are one hundred percent committed to class and are so engaged and are so excited by the work and it is not easy right now. A lot of them are remote and trying to manage all that. They are incredible whether they are taking a class from Egypt or Taiwan or California - they are in class at 9am in New York.
What is your mission with your work? What is the impact you want to have on the world through design?
To support the organizations that are doing the really important work to bring us a more equitable and just society, both through our practice and our teaching. Whatever we can do to support their work and empower them to do their job, that is the most important thing I feel we can do. Also, to make sure that design is brought equitably into the built environment for all communities.
Finally, what advice do you have for those entering the industry? Would your advice be any different or additional for women?
The most important thing is to not wait for the perfect moment or for when you think everything is perfectly aligned for the next job. I say this because when I was asked to teach, I said I didn’t think I was ready. I said, “I’m not ready to teach.” This was with Donna Robertson who I had been a TA for. Donna said, “No, you are ready! You need to teach.” You don’t have to wait for what you think is the right time or the right moment. Trust that you are ready. Be open to taking those opportunities when they come in.
For women, make sure you look for work environments that are supportive. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about firm culture and the expectations for the work environment. In fact, everybody should do that, not just women.