"Fred Stitt," by Fred Stitt
World, don't forget that I have the niftiest boyfriend ever.
I thought I'd finally share an email from him with you (oops, I capitalized "him" at first; I'm tired), but now that I see he's appended a short auto-bio for me to edit, I'll append that, instead (since I don't think it'll be missed if I take down the personal email I at first posted.
Anyway, here's my plain-speaking but much-accomplished lover, on the objectively most noble topic [tongue only nominally in cheek], Fred Stitt:
Fred A. Stitt, Architect.
Founder and Director, San Francisco Institute of Architecture; Director, Berkeley Institute of Ecological Design
Fred Stitt entered architecture to combine lifelong interests in creative problem solving, science, technology, and the arts.
His primary interest as an adolescent was the nature and functioning of consciousness and the creative process.
After reading biographies of Frank Lloyd Wright and Bucky Fuller, he saw architecture as the pre-eminent problem-solving profession.
In 1956, he approached Frank Lloyd Wright to apprentice at Taliesin but ultimately ended up in Norman, Oklahoma to study with Bruce Goff, a highly innovative architect and protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright.
As an entry level employee in architects' offices, Fred perceived that while architects were busy solving problems for their clients, they didn't have the time or resources necessary to deal with their own problems of professional practice. There was very little information on the subject at the time and architecture schools were notorious for not dealing with the most important issues of professional survival.
Through the 1960's Fred proceeded to work at and study the practices of architectural firms across the U.S., noting their dominant problems of operation and, when they arose, solutions to those problems.
He also studied with the Nathaniel Branden Institute in New York City, an outgrowth of his earliest influence in architecture, The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. At that time he also attended economics lectures by Alan Greenspan to learn the fundamentals of market economics and financial markets.
In 1968, Fred entered the Architecture program at U.C. Berkeley and began to consolidate his study of architectural offices into term papers. These would then be revised and published as manuals on design practice to be sold to architects and engineers by mail. Thus the publishing company, GUIDELINES, was founded with his partner, Chandler Vienneau, in 1968.
It's through GUIDELINES and collaboration with Chandler that 70 some manuals were created on everything from creative problem solving to architectural planning, financial management, marketing, building failures, and systematic production methods.
In 19xx, he published his first book, Systems Drafting, for McGraw-Hill. This bestseller introduced systematized graphic methods and the then-emerging use of the computer in architectural practice. He also began providing workshops nationally on the various topics of his publications and since then has done hundreds of lectures and workshops for thousands of architects, students, and related design professionals.
While studying at UC Berkeley and later as an instructor at UC, Fred initiated surveys of architectural students and graduates regarding their education. He found, as did surveys by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and Progressive Architecture magazine, that 80% of architects surveyed were profoundly dissatisfied with major portions of their professional education.
To deal with this problem, Fred, with the assistance of UC graduate student Beverly xxx, compiled a list of 30 primary problems in architecture schools.
In 1991, Fred founded the San Francisco Institute of Architecture to systematically redesign architecture education and test the results. A cofounder was xxx xxx, recent CEO of the national American Institute of Architects. A year later, xxx separated from SFIA to pursue continuing-education professional development programs.
From the opening semester of one class and 15 students, SFIA grew to a full 15-class semester program and an average of 60 students per semester. Fees were deliberately kept low to help students avoid debt, but this slowed down progress in school acceptance and accreditation (a very expensive proposition for a small school).
Despite lack of accreditation, graduates of SFIA have gone on to teach at other schools, become licensed architects, and enter the profession in a variety of roles from contractors and developers to green building consultants and administrators to such agencies as the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
Later, Fred created continuing education programs for the AIA and Distance Learning programs for students around the world, all of which continue and are being expanded to this day.
One of the problems in education cited by students in the original UC study was the lack of ecological and environmental sensitivity in most architecture schools. This oversight was addressed early on at SFIA with the founding, by one of SFIA's first students, Skip Wenz, of the SFIA Ecological Design program. This program soon pervaded every class and studio project at the school, and although there have been many other worthwhile workshop and course programs, SFIA stands alone as the earliest professional degree granting program in green building, sustainable planning, and ecological design.
As a means of encouraging other schools to adopt green building programs, Fred authored/edited a textbook designed for such programs, the Ecological Design Handbook. The "Eco Handbook" is used internationally and was recently republished and adopted in China.
In his advocacy of green building, in 1998?XX Fred sponsored the first of many national conferences on ecological design in education and design practice. He continues with numerous workshops and several conferences annually. (See www.sfia.net for recent, current, and future programs.)
Fred's current projects include an advanced book on green building for W.W. Norton, a new book on Frank Lloyd Wright and his many green building innovations, and a multi-volume set of studies of aesthetic theories and design systems used by architects throughout history.
In advancing his interests in the sciences and in futurism, Fred was an early supporter of Eric Drexler, founder of the new discipline of Nanotechnology; and was the first publisher of the Nanotechnology Foresight Newsletter. Also, Fred, in collaboration with xxx xxx, gave the first national conference on Space Architecture, which attracted graduate students such as Peter Diamandes, who went on to found the Space University and is now part of the SpaceShip One organization.
In pursuit of his concerns over human rights, (essential, in his view, to helping liberate human creativity), Fred participated in the founding of the Libertarian International, whose members' courageous dissemination of pro-freedom literature assisted in the ultimate liberation of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Fred continues to create and update publications for the GUIDELINES company, including a new Building Information Management program designed to integrate and systematize the building design and project management process from start to finish.
And SFIA, now relocated to Berkeley, California, continues with a wide-ranging new set of programs starting in the fall of 2007. Fred plans to spin off SFIA programs as franchises in other cities. Since other architecture schools are slow to adapt and adopt green building into their curricula, SFIA will provide the alternative education that is much desired by students and the profession at large.
Fred's work is nicely summed up in the text of an award presented by a local chapter of the American Institute of Architecture, as follows: (xxxadd award text)
I thought I'd finally share an email from him with you (oops, I capitalized "him" at first; I'm tired), but now that I see he's appended a short auto-bio for me to edit, I'll append that, instead (since I don't think it'll be missed if I take down the personal email I at first posted.
Anyway, here's my plain-speaking but much-accomplished lover, on the objectively most noble topic [tongue only nominally in cheek], Fred Stitt:
Fred A. Stitt, Architect.
Founder and Director, San Francisco Institute of Architecture; Director, Berkeley Institute of Ecological Design
Fred Stitt entered architecture to combine lifelong interests in creative problem solving, science, technology, and the arts.
His primary interest as an adolescent was the nature and functioning of consciousness and the creative process.
After reading biographies of Frank Lloyd Wright and Bucky Fuller, he saw architecture as the pre-eminent problem-solving profession.
In 1956, he approached Frank Lloyd Wright to apprentice at Taliesin but ultimately ended up in Norman, Oklahoma to study with Bruce Goff, a highly innovative architect and protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright.
As an entry level employee in architects' offices, Fred perceived that while architects were busy solving problems for their clients, they didn't have the time or resources necessary to deal with their own problems of professional practice. There was very little information on the subject at the time and architecture schools were notorious for not dealing with the most important issues of professional survival.
Through the 1960's Fred proceeded to work at and study the practices of architectural firms across the U.S., noting their dominant problems of operation and, when they arose, solutions to those problems.
He also studied with the Nathaniel Branden Institute in New York City, an outgrowth of his earliest influence in architecture, The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. At that time he also attended economics lectures by Alan Greenspan to learn the fundamentals of market economics and financial markets.
In 1968, Fred entered the Architecture program at U.C. Berkeley and began to consolidate his study of architectural offices into term papers. These would then be revised and published as manuals on design practice to be sold to architects and engineers by mail. Thus the publishing company, GUIDELINES, was founded with his partner, Chandler Vienneau, in 1968.
It's through GUIDELINES and collaboration with Chandler that 70 some manuals were created on everything from creative problem solving to architectural planning, financial management, marketing, building failures, and systematic production methods.
In 19xx, he published his first book, Systems Drafting, for McGraw-Hill. This bestseller introduced systematized graphic methods and the then-emerging use of the computer in architectural practice. He also began providing workshops nationally on the various topics of his publications and since then has done hundreds of lectures and workshops for thousands of architects, students, and related design professionals.
While studying at UC Berkeley and later as an instructor at UC, Fred initiated surveys of architectural students and graduates regarding their education. He found, as did surveys by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and Progressive Architecture magazine, that 80% of architects surveyed were profoundly dissatisfied with major portions of their professional education.
To deal with this problem, Fred, with the assistance of UC graduate student Beverly xxx, compiled a list of 30 primary problems in architecture schools.
In 1991, Fred founded the San Francisco Institute of Architecture to systematically redesign architecture education and test the results. A cofounder was xxx xxx, recent CEO of the national American Institute of Architects. A year later, xxx separated from SFIA to pursue continuing-education professional development programs.
From the opening semester of one class and 15 students, SFIA grew to a full 15-class semester program and an average of 60 students per semester. Fees were deliberately kept low to help students avoid debt, but this slowed down progress in school acceptance and accreditation (a very expensive proposition for a small school).
Despite lack of accreditation, graduates of SFIA have gone on to teach at other schools, become licensed architects, and enter the profession in a variety of roles from contractors and developers to green building consultants and administrators to such agencies as the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
Later, Fred created continuing education programs for the AIA and Distance Learning programs for students around the world, all of which continue and are being expanded to this day.
One of the problems in education cited by students in the original UC study was the lack of ecological and environmental sensitivity in most architecture schools. This oversight was addressed early on at SFIA with the founding, by one of SFIA's first students, Skip Wenz, of the SFIA Ecological Design program. This program soon pervaded every class and studio project at the school, and although there have been many other worthwhile workshop and course programs, SFIA stands alone as the earliest professional degree granting program in green building, sustainable planning, and ecological design.
As a means of encouraging other schools to adopt green building programs, Fred authored/edited a textbook designed for such programs, the Ecological Design Handbook. The "Eco Handbook" is used internationally and was recently republished and adopted in China.
In his advocacy of green building, in 1998?XX Fred sponsored the first of many national conferences on ecological design in education and design practice. He continues with numerous workshops and several conferences annually. (See www.sfia.net for recent, current, and future programs.)
Fred's current projects include an advanced book on green building for W.W. Norton, a new book on Frank Lloyd Wright and his many green building innovations, and a multi-volume set of studies of aesthetic theories and design systems used by architects throughout history.
In advancing his interests in the sciences and in futurism, Fred was an early supporter of Eric Drexler, founder of the new discipline of Nanotechnology; and was the first publisher of the Nanotechnology Foresight Newsletter. Also, Fred, in collaboration with xxx xxx, gave the first national conference on Space Architecture, which attracted graduate students such as Peter Diamandes, who went on to found the Space University and is now part of the SpaceShip One organization.
In pursuit of his concerns over human rights, (essential, in his view, to helping liberate human creativity), Fred participated in the founding of the Libertarian International, whose members' courageous dissemination of pro-freedom literature assisted in the ultimate liberation of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Fred continues to create and update publications for the GUIDELINES company, including a new Building Information Management program designed to integrate and systematize the building design and project management process from start to finish.
And SFIA, now relocated to Berkeley, California, continues with a wide-ranging new set of programs starting in the fall of 2007. Fred plans to spin off SFIA programs as franchises in other cities. Since other architecture schools are slow to adapt and adopt green building into their curricula, SFIA will provide the alternative education that is much desired by students and the profession at large.
Fred's work is nicely summed up in the text of an award presented by a local chapter of the American Institute of Architecture, as follows: (xxxadd award text)