Anne Zimmerman, AIA, LEED AP – Principal, AZ Architecture Studio & Director, Venice Community Housing

As part of the AIA|LA Citizen Architect initiative, we are profiling architects that are currently engaged in civic affairs by serving on Boards, Commissions, Neighborhood Councils or who work for public agencies. In this interview, Anne Zimmerman, AIA, who, in addition to leading her own firm, is a board member of Venice Community Housing, is interviewed by Will Wright, Hon. AIA|LA.

1. What inspired you to become an architect and what were some of those formative memories that continue to shape your design philosophy?

Perhaps my parents injected me with architecture when they took me to the Guggenheim as a child, and allowed me to race up and down the ramps, and to the opening of Lever House, in New York City, where we lived at the time. My grandfather adored Frank Lloyd Wright, and told me of visiting Johnson Wax in Racine, WI. Getting the top score possible in “space relations” on the junior high aptitude test lead my counselor to advise fashion, graphics, or interior design but not architecture. Presuming because I was a girl (or not independently wealthy)?
In my sophomore year of college I suddenly decided to change my major from mathematics to architecture, and to remain in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan (although SCI-arc had just started and grandfather made me aware of it).

Rooted in experiential learning, architecture provides the most sublime examples. To visit architecture is to study the siting, program and concepts, to experience the forms, understanding how materials are used, how things work or don’t work. All architecture exists in a context and being a city girl, I love working in the urban realm, on buildings and spaces that serve and nurture the public. Single family houses are not my focus, but rather projects ranging from multi-family housing to adaptive re-use to buildings supporting community based non-profit programs to healthcare needs. Adapting and fitting into the whole of what makes a city and contributing to that city making and building is what lead me to join the Board of Venice Community Housing in 2005.

2. What motivates & fascinates you the most (or challenges you the most) about your current role?

Sometimes being on a Board can feel like a glacial collective process, which it sometimes is. Other times, such as the current push to support and help solve housing and homelessness in the city, keeps us all busy reaching out to and educating our community, and generally supporting what we believe to be constructive and important.

Venice Community Housing is a complex organization, and our Board is activist along with our primary “caretaker” role. The opportunity to personally and politically support low-income and supportive housing, services and support for the homeless to not be criminalized or become unhoused in the first place, after school and job training programs. I know what we do is necessary and important. It is never enough, but it is something, to know you are contributing to mitigating the effects of rampantly rising home and rental prices, and displacement. It is hard, slow and requires a lot of patience, and perseverance.

3. As you’ve become more civically engaged, what insight can you share on how architects can become both better listeners and stronger leaders?

As demanding a career as architecture is, I have always found time to support community based design and projects, when the opportunity has risen. Years ago in Berkeley, when I first moved to California, my rented apartment was adjacent to the proposed, and now existing, Savo Island Co-op Housing at Stewart and Milvia. Just attending the local meeting to learn about and support the effort, was an eye opener.

I encourage, and implore architects to attend community meetings in support of projects not just in your neighborhood, but as they face almost certain resistance through-out the city. Provide substantive input to help improve the project, be it from an aesthetic, operational or defensible space/security perspective. Please listen to what others are saying to inform your input. Please engage others who are willing to listen to the facts about the project, the funding or siting. Please become informed by reading about the issues, learning the facts and forming your own opinions as you engage in our civitas.

4. In the year 2018, what do you recognize to be amongst our most pressing needs?  

Architects need to participate in our shared civitas more, maybe even, as an elected official, if you are inclined. We have the perfect skills and knowledge base to “act locally and think globally”. Apply to serve on public or non-profit boards.

Participating in clarifying and defining the social contracts that are critical to civilized society is desperately needed right now.

It’s also important to me that my profession accepts, understands and redefines their role and effects on our society and culture, often as the hired “help” of power and concentrated capital. What does this really mean for us as a profession?

5. And what do you anticipate will be our most pressing needs in 2028?  In the year 2058??

Given that poverty, and migrations, because we just can’t seem to have world peace, social equity, resource protections or clean water, are only going to become exacerbated by continued climate change. We have a lot of work to do. Architects have the know-how and abilities to constructively insert themselves anywhere into this picture, depending on their personal interests. I don’t see this changing before 2058. I certainly hope we make positive impacts, but right now we are fighting against regression.

6. What is your favorite city/ building/ park/ plaza/ place and why?

Where I am at the moment is usually my favorite place. Ronchamps in my favorite building. Still. Because experiencing this sculptural and functional form, on a hill, as the snow was melting, and the scupper fountain was “working” was sublime. I sat on the hill sketching the outdoor altar and went inside to feel warmed, safe and colorful.

Cities that I consider unknowable fascinate me. I include my own, Los Angeles, in that category, along with Mexico City, Jakarta, Shanghai, and many more I have not seen. These are huge, sprawling cities, in many ways organic in their growth. So much is going on at once, and planning, though involved, often seems lost in the process. There are so many forces shaping these places, and they change so quickly, sometimes with palimpsests, more often without, that we cannot “know” them fully, ever. I like that. A lot.

7. What’s your favorite way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon?  (What do you do for fun?  Favorite book?  Podcast? Museum??)

Besides the fun of experiencing architecture, art and design; photographing our city and places around the world, on foot, on bicycle, on a hike in nature to nurture; with a good book, not too scary, to sooth; to music on vinyl, live at Disney Hall or in the street; or downloaded from KCRW and friends; eating in every amazing funky, ethnic and tasty restaurant in Los Angeles and in the world.
Architects are polymaths and I revel in that.

Anne Zimmerman, AIA, LEED AP – Principal, AZ Architecture Studio & Director, Venice Community Housing

Anne Zimmerman, AIA, LEED AP is the Principal of AZ Architecture Studio, a 100% women owned firm located in Venice, California. Founded in 1993, AZ Architecture Studio specializes in architecture and urban design serving the general public primarily throughout the City and County of Los Angeles. Anne previously served on the Boards of the Design Professionals’ Coalition, an organization devoted to providing pro-bono services to communities in need, and the Association for Woman in Architecture Foundation. She is a past President of the Association for Women in Architecture and served as co-chair of the AIA/LA Urban Design Committee.

As one of six recipients of National Endowment for the Arts, City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and Graham Foundation grants, along with private local business support, AZ Architecture Studio developed concept designs with Los Angeles’ Crenshaw community for “Gateway Crenshaw”, exhibited in the “Living in Los Angeles” exhibit at the Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park. Anne received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree from the University of Michigan in 1977. She has lived and worked in California since 1978, first in the Bay Area, then in Venice for 18 years, and now resides in Sherman Oaks. When she has an opportunity, Anne is traveling, mostly to affordable and interesting third world countries. This has informed her view of the world and approach to architecture and design.

www.azarchitecturestudio.com