by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Kira Gould, Assoc. AIA, is a Boston-based writer and the director of communications for William McDonough + Partners. Gould has written on sustainability for Metropolis, Architectural Record, The Boston Globe, and other publications. She is the 2007 chair of the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) and co-author, with Lance Hosey, AIA, of the forthcoming book Women in Green: Voices in Sustainability.

Education: I got my undergraduate degree at the University of Kansas in journalism and English and my master’s degree in architecture and design criticism at Parsons School of Design in New York. It was like a master of architecture, but instead of studio, I had writing courses.

Hobbies: When I’m not traveling, I love to cook. I also like gardening when I can find time for it.

Last book read: I’m reading three. Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, by Alex Steffen. That’s not a book you read cover to cover. It’s a massive book. It’s all these little pieces and I find it a valuable touchstone right now. It’s optimistic and inspiring. I just started Bill McKibben’s book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, which is about the power of community and the human need for community. It’s really beautiful. He’s a fantastic writer. I’m also reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. He’s a fabulous writer, so I’m trying to read that one really slowly.

Professional influences: My parents, Bob and Karen Gould. My father is an architect; my mother is an interior designer. I worked for Gould Evans for nine years until I made this change to McDonough’s firm. Watching them build a firm has been really important to me. They are great examples of what can happen when entrepreneurialism meets creativity and design. That’s been inspirational to me in a subtle way. Because I grew up around it, I thought it was what everyone did.

Career arc: I started out on a more traditional journalism career path and worked in shelter publications. I wound up at Metropolis magazine for a few years, which was a formative time for me, and was managing editor for some time. I left Metropolis to work with my father’s firm and did that on a part-time basis so I could continue to write freelance for various publications. Since that time, I’ve continued this sort of hybrid career. It’s been fun and diverse.

On working with William McDonough + Partners: I work from my home in Boston, but I spend time in the Charlottesville and San Francisco offices on a regular basis. I am excited to be working with such a smart, committed group of people. They’ve been at the forefront of the sustainable design movement for a long time. It’s especially exciting to be involved with this firm at a moment when the content of messages about sustainability and design is so critical. I think the communication component is a really important part of what’s happening in the movement. “Greenwashing” and other content-related issues are that much more important because the volume is turned up. It’s important that architects have a strong, clear message about the role of design in sustainability.

On becoming an associate member: I became an associate when I was working with Gould Evans. Initially, I wanted to make sure that I was connected with what the organization was doing and talking about. I felt like it was my professional responsibility. At that time, I was living in New York and was doing some writing with the AIA New York chapter, so I already was involved at the local level. I got involved with AIA COTE in New York and that evolved to working with COTE at the national level.

Interest in sustainability: I’ve been interested in environmental issues for a long time, but I would say that it crystallized in terms of understanding the relationship to design during grad school. Jean Gardner, a professor at Parsons, opened my eyes to some of these issues—to what that relationship might be and how design intent relates to the implications that human activity has for the planet. That continued after Parsons when I worked at Metropolis with Editor-in-Chief Susan Szenasy who has been an important influence on me. When I was there, they did their first big issue on sustainability and that work was really formative for me. It helped bring a lot of those ideas to fruition.

Aha moment: While I’ve been interested in this movement for a long time, last year I had a Big Change moment in terms of my thinking about sustainability and the urgency of it. I had an opportunity to go to Costa Rica for a week-long workshop with Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry, and Dayna Baumeister of the Biomimicry Guild. We spent a week immersed in the rainforest and talking about how natural systems and organisms can inform design. It was transformative. The need to move the needle faster really came home to me.

On the 2030 Challenge: I think the 2030 Challenge is a great lever, and we need all the levers we can get. I commend Ed Mazria for his leadership and his commitment. I was extremely pleased to see that the AIA was willing to take that head on and put it in a position statement. It is changing practice. COTE has always seen the issue of sustainability in a robust way, so, for us, the 2030 Challenge is the energy part on a large map.

Challenge facing the profession: One of the greatest challenges for the AIA, for COTE, and for architects generally is how we effectively collaborate with other disciplines and organizations on this issue because advancing progress in this area absolutely depends on that. There are political issues about turf and who owns what idea, but at the end of the day, all of that must fade away. That’s a challenge for the organization, the profession, and the schools. All of those entities have suffered “silo-ization” over time, but we have to figure out how to work towards a unity of knowledge that will let all those things work together.