by Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA

Summary: Here, in the third of AIArchitect's Diversity series, are the stories of three African-American architects who founded, own, and lead profitable firms, despite severe hurdles on the road to success. And each is producing high octane design.

• David Lee, FAIA, of Stull and Lee Architects, based in Boston, tells of the special effort his firm has had to put out to be seen as of the same caliber as majority competitors.
• Michael Willis, FAIA, of San Francisco-based Michael Willis Architects, had the brilliant idea to come upon a building type that had hitherto been seen strictly as engineering—and made architecture out of it.
• Philip Freelon, FAIA, of The Freelon Group, at Research Triangle Park, N.C., has developed a solid institutional practice. He, like Lee and Willis, has received an enviable string of AIA honor awards that testifies to the design quality of their work.

M. David Lee, FAIA, cofounder, Stull and Lee Architects, Boston
David Lee, one of the most original of today’s black designers, has found, as he goes about seeking new business for the firm, how exposed he is to the trials of owning and running a black firm in our time. He looks with longing, but without resentment, at the cutting-edge design breaks afforded majority firms thanks to the power, independence, and big budgets of their patrons. He has found that most private clients still gravitate to majority design firms, and without many of the constraints on budgets and innovation of the typical public client, give their architects a freer hand in stretching the design envelope.

Poorer communities generally rely on public sources for funding. “Often the agencies that underwrite these projects impose design requirements that are inflexible and not suited to reinterpretation to fit a particular ethnic culture,” argues Lee. “The HUD requirements we often worked within did not vary whether one was building on a Hopi reservation or in Harlem.”

On private-sector work and typically on public work, too, black-owned firms have to prove themselves every time. Lee remembers in earlier years how frustrated he and partner Donald L. Stull, FAIA, were when they would show a past project to a client prospect, only to have the client ask: “OK, now what part of that project did you do?” He said: "No, we were the architects of record. The whole thing was ours."

Lee concedes that with his track record he often gets an easy bye in the first round of selection. Having served as president of the Boston Society of Architects, taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and, along with Stull, having judged a host of design award programs—all this has raised the firm’s profile and made things a little easier.

Nonetheless, he points out: “Are we where, perhaps, we should be, given our track record? I'm not certain that we are. If you really look hard, even where we have had breakthroughs—and some of our clients are majority clients—it has been in those places where there was a minority angle in some way, shape, or form.” Work in the majority private sector is still the exception.

Michael E. Willis, FAIA, Michael Willis Architects
Michael Willis, the principal of Michael Willis Architects, with offices in San Francisco and Portland, Ore., has had the kind of success envied by architects of every race who have wanted to own and run a successful firm. His early high school, though, is echoed by many minority architects: “I wasn’t particularly outgoing but I loved drawing. My mother was a successful commercial artist. My first stumble in the road was in my high school.” Instead of architecture school, his counselor steered him towards trade school. Luckily, the senior counselor took him aside and said “if you want to go to architecture school, I’ll get you to the door. You’ll have to do the work yourself, but if that’s where you want to go, I’ll get you there.’”

After Washington University, Willis worked for Charles Fleming, a large black-owned firm in St. Louis, where he learned business development. Subsequent time teaching at Berkeley taught him the power of talent-driven small firms doing substantive work.

After time back in St. Louis, then again to San Francisco to start an office there for Fleming, Willis started his own firm in 1988. “Our design approach was to create a place where the solutions were,” he says. He was 37.

His firm’s breakthrough came, not surprisingly, through public work. What was surprising was the type: water purification facilities. The Sobrante Ozonation Facility, in El Sobrante, Calif., become the flagship for the district, enticing visitors from the water industry and the general public. Avoiding discussion of the size of his firm (four persons) or its longevity, he concentrated during the selection process on what people who work there need: light and air … a good place to work. That project led to two other water-purification projects, profitable work that earned the money it needed to buy computers, office space, and chairs. Being an expert in such a specialization has its advantages, Willis says. “There’s almost no bar to your being involved if you understand the technology,” he contends. “And because it’s not glamorous, it narrows the field.”

Willis approaches community development similarly. He talks to the public client about the way people live. What can you see from the window? How does light and air get into your building? What’s your relationship with the outside from your front door?

Philip G. Freelon, FAIA, The Freelon Group
While some African-American architects feel that they are straddling the fault line of the racial divide, Philip Freelon, founding partner of The Freelon Group, embraces the notion of working and competing within the mainstream architecture profession. He believes that the vocabulary and palette of contemporary American architecture is rich enough to allow for the appropriate interpretation of most building programs. Freelon chooses to address his client’s desires for “appropriate” solutions as he applies Modern design principles.

Freelon’s parents and grandparents were well-educated and gave him a deep appreciation of Modern design. His own education was at Hampton, N.C. State, MIT, and the Harvard GSD, where he was a Loeb Fellow.

In his first 12 years in practice, he was an associate at 3D/I and, at O’Brien/Atkins Associates in Research Triangle Park, N.C. vice president of architecture and the youngest shareholder. With his own firm, he has received 23 AIA design awards at the regional, state and local levels.

When clients visit his offices in the Research Triangle Park, NC, they see the diversity. He presently has a combined staff of 51; 30 percent are people of color. While Freelon concedes he has been more fortunate than many African-American architects regarding commissions from corporate clients, much of the firm’s work still comes from the public sector, and that trying to do innovative work on a limited budget is a challenge.

Freelon incorporates African images or symbolism on buildings, only where appropriate, he says: “My roots are in Africa and the branches and leaves grew in America.” He uses jazz as a comparison, where the use of instruments was reconceived to express freedom and creativity.