emily carr design futures interview 2011 susan mavor
DESCRIPTION
Emily Carr Design Futures Interview 2011TRANSCRIPT
PROJECT OBJECTIVE:
The following interviews are part of a larger project for a third-
year Directed Studies in Design Futures. We have conducted
these interviews with Emily Carr alumni to gather knowledge
about design practices, methodologies, experiences and
advocay, while simultaneously taking the opportunity to
showcase former students of Emily Carr University. The
interviews were prepared with two specific audiences in mind;
Current, the Design Research Journal, and the Design°, which
both are web based publishing mediums for design research
and degree content respectively.
We are excited to share with you the outcomes of our project,
and to create a legacy for Emily Carr, sharing the experiences
and insights of alumni.
INTERVIEW
Bree + Solveig
The following is an
interview with the
Principal of Public
Architecture &
Communication and
Metaform
Susan Mavor.
The interview was
transcribed from a
video of our meeting
on October 20th, 2011.
SJ: Could you please introduce yourself and the
company?
SM: I am Susan Mavor and am the principal at
Metaform, which is a small studio I started in
1995. I graduated from Emily Carr in 1993 which
was then called Institute of Art and Design at the
time. I am also a partner in Public Architecture +
Communication and so right now I kind of wear
two hats, I am essentially in two bands. The larger
office you see behind me is comprised of both of
those teams. This is a situation we set up about
three years ago when some friends of mine, who
are architects, left their big corporate offices and
wanted to work on their own, and we saw a need
for identity in relation to spaces essentially. So
we’ve been working collaboratively since then. In
speaking about Metaform right now, it’s relevant to
frame it as about half of our professional work, with
the other half being conducted under the umbrella
of “Public.”
SJ: Do they [two company hats] feed into each other?
SM: They do, definitely. I would say it is easier to
add a communication project on to an architecture
project than the other way around if there’s a
building or large construction project or even a
feasibility study related to a community center. In
terms of process, we are making great progress in
feeding the one discipline into the other.
SJ: Could you tell us about the concept behind the
name Metaform?
SM: Well, at the time I think I was really interested
in the notion of transformation and metamorphosis,
that design is about transforming things from a
to b and the name is a play on those two ideas.
I also have an English literature background and
the notion of metaphor is interesting. The notion of
metaphor is a more abstract way of representing
something as opposed to what it is immediately
apparent.
Susan Mavor kindly let us visit her to talk to us
about her working experiences and signature
approach to projects. Susan is an Emily Carr
Communications Design alumni. She is a
principal of the Vancouver-based studio Public
Architecture + Communication as well Metaform.
Public Architecture and Communication is a
Vancouver based integrated design studio
formed in collaboration between architects and
communication designer. In addition she runs her
studio Metaform which she founded in 1995.
When looking at Susan’s website and work, our attention
was drawn to her use of sophisticated language with a lot of
semiotic depth to the terms she uses. Now this was making
more sense in terms of her having an English Literature
background as well, but we were curious as to how this
affected clients.
SJ: Yes, we saw for instance your work for the Man
Ray exhibit, which was so beautiful. We were very
excited to have the opportunity to meet you and see
where the ideas around this project were generated.
SM: The Man Ray exhibit at the MOA was the
latest in the long line of collaborations I’ve had with
them. When I left my first job as a designer and
decided to start on my own, I went straight to the
Museum of Anthropology.
SJ: What attracted you to museums?
SM: Well I love museums. They are just so beautiful
and MOA is a particularly beautiful Museum.
I have always appreciated the way museums
reflect on culture and not only on objects. This is
a particularly interesting time for museums as they
re-evaluate their role and the role of objects. I find
these reflections on culture engaging.
SJ: How do you build trust with your clients?
SM: I think it is important to listen to them. I mean
every designer says they do that, but not everyone
does it well. You kind of have to put yourself inside
their skin and to understand what it is they are
trying to get at. We try to understand their point of
view and solve their problems to the best of our
ability.
SJ: Our impressions of your work, from the
photography in the work, to the images taken of
it, is that there is a strong sense of space and an
architectural approach. There is a lot of depth, various
perspectives and angles in the work portrayed. So we
were wondering where this influence comes from?
SM: I think that’s a very interesting observation and
I’ll answer it in twofold. One influence is that my
first design work was in theatre. I didn’t know what
graphic design was when I was in University before
I went to Emily Carr. I was an English Major and I
loved stories. Then I suddenly realized that if you
do theatre design you get to take the stories and
make them into a real world, a three dimensional
environment with lights and doorways and all kinds
of fantastic imaginative things. And I have always
been interested in scale and in theatre the scale is
more in line with the human body. I suppose I am
less interested in the flat experience, but moreso
the three dimensional aspect. The second way to
answer that question is that sometimes things just
look better captured on a bit of an angle with a
bit more energy. If you are not actually holding the
thing in your hands it can look a little bit flat unless
it’s a poster or a stamp. So it’s a trick, and not a
very original trick.
SJ: A quote from your website is that “a good
designer looks at a problem from a few different
angles”. Can you explain a little more what you mean
by this?
SM: My long-term client-turned-collaborator at
MOA will often say that I never do what he asks
me to do, I will always do something different...
and that it will be better. So it is partially you look
at what’s being asked for and consider if this really
is the best way to do it. For example we did an
exhibit there a few years ago for the Tahltan Nation.
It was the first exhibit ever of the Tahltan’s artwork,
so it was a huge community event for them. There
was a lot of dialogue back and forth with their
tribe council and their elders; they asked for an
expression of themselves at the entry way.
So then the natural question was “What is it you
want to express? If there is one thing people
take away from this, what do you want them to
know?” But The Tahltan Nation wanted people
to know that this was their land basically, not just
in a political sense, but that “this is our land, it is
part of us”. So we created some banners through
which the visitors had to walk through, almost like
ovesized vertical blinds. Each of the banners held a
chunk of the image, and the banners were a portal
into a richly-painted red ochre room, filled with
artwork, beaded clothing, tools and stories. The
idea was basically that you were walking into their
land and their culture at the same time.
“Sometimes things just look better
captured on a bit of an angle with a bit
more energy.”