Albert M. Comly Jr., AIA

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Albert Comly is the director of justice programs for Vitetta in Philadelphia, a certified fire protection specialist, and a chapter author for the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Fire Protection Handbook. Comly also is a third-generation volunteer firefighter and a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

Education: I graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor of arts and an MArch. They had a six-year dual degree program.

Early career: I came out of school and worked for a little while in construction, and then went to work in Louis Kahn’s office. I started building models and worked my way up to doing other things. In his office, there was really only one architect and that was Lou Kahn. Everybody else supported that. I did get to work on several of the high-profile projects while I was there, including the British Arts Studies Building at Yale. I did a small amount of work on the Salk Institute, which was just finishing up at the time.

When Lou died, several of us formed a group to finish the work that was in the office and ostensibly to bring in new work, but as probably could’ve been figured out by any normal person, people who came to speak to Kahn were there because they wanted him, regardless of whether other people were assisting and doing the work. The project that we worked the hardest on for the next few years was the work in Bangladesh. We basically finished that because the people who had been going out to Bangladesh were still there and they were part of the group, particularly a fellow by the name of Henry Wilcox. I guess that was two or three years' worth of time.

A firefighting tradition: I was born into a family of firefighters. My father is one. My grandfather was one. All volunteers. I started riding in parades with my father almost from the point where I could sit up straight. Some of my earliest memories are of riding along in parades where I could just barely see out. I became a volunteer firefighter when I was 16. There are places that allow you to become a firefighter younger than 16, but today most states have adopted some sort of a junior firefighter program, which is done under the state labor department. In Pennsylvania, they have the program set up so that they can be firefighters, but they can’t go into a hazardous atmosphere, and they can’t use certain kinds of tools that might be considered dangerous. They can be on the scene and assist, and once the building’s been declared under control, they can go in and help sometimes with overhaul.

Interest in architecture: I don’t know how I became interested or where that started. I just know that at some early age I became very interested in the way things were built and designed, and I adopted the attitude that I was going to go to school for architecture. I don’t know exactly what sent me over the edge there, but it started way before high school.

Balancing both activities: I don’t play golf. And I don’t sleep a lot.

I think Lou used to consider architecture more like a religion than a profession, but they both have that aspect that time is something you cannot measure and you can’t stick to schedules well. You want to, but you can’t. I truly enjoy being a volunteer firefighter, so I guess I just make time to do it. Over the years, it’s gotten to be busier. The fire company with which I’m associated answers somewhere between 600-620 calls a year. Doing the arithmetic, that’s about two a day. Granted, I’m not always around to answer those. There are other people involved; that’s how it works. If you need 10 people, you have 60 so you’re able to make sure you’ve got the 10, but it runs in cycles. There will be times when I’ll be home for an evening and we’ll have two calls. Then, I may go a week or two without responding to a call.

Does public service better your architecture? I believe it does on a couple of levels. One is that the fire service is somewhat paramilitary in the sense that you learn how to communicate clearly and set and achieve objectives, and I think that rolls into architecture very well. I think architecture needs to do that because when people hire you as an architect, they fully expect you to provide some leadership for what they’re doing.

The other part of it is the understanding of fire and life safety that is particularly helpful when you actually sit down to do a building, particularly one where you might have mixed uses or it ends up involving unusual systems or processes. This office right now is doing the expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. It’s a substantial building and it’s not without issues that the code couldn’t quite cover, so you need to have interpretation. The one plays into the other very well.

Evolution of NFPA: I’ve been involved there since about 1985. At one time, the AIA had a substantial presence. They used to send three liaisons to each meeting. That was a time when you had multiple model codes, and at NFPA a lot of the stuff was still being developed. Today, it’s a different circumstance. Certainly the resources are entirely different in terms of what’s available to do these things, but also I think that a lot of the codes have reached the point where it’s not so much new development. When you have a disaster, the first thing you have to do is take a look and see if the codes are actually being enforced, not whether you need to write new ones. That’s changed the approach, but I think that the fire service and fire safety right now are going to move much more into pre-planning and design, particularly passive fire protection within the design and fire education. The United States probably far exceeds the world in terms of the amount of equipment and manpower that it can put on a scene, and it still has fire deaths. At some point you have to look at other things.

Reading material: I’m reading one right now by Ray Didinger, a sports editor in Philadelphia. It’s called One Last Read: The Collected Works of the World’s Slowest Sportswriter. I also just finished reading a book about Monticello.

Proudest achievement: I don’t know. I guess I keep thinking it’s still out there because it’s always like the next building is the one that will be the greatest.

Best practice tip for colleagues: I would say that the architect really does need to be the leader in developing the consensus for the project, and remember that we are doing the owner’s building.