Garrett Nelli, AIA, helped design a water kiosk to serve residents of rural Appalachia as part of a design-build studio during his senior year at the University of Tennessee. He continued to gain experience through a travel scholarship with AIA Seattle, and currently effects change through his role at NAC Architecture. We chatted with him about his passion for public service architecture and how he see architects’ roles and responsibilities developing in the next several years and beyond.
In school, I was interested in the emerging field of public interest design and how architecture firms were repositioning themselves, both from a practice standpoint and from a professional standpoint. In a lot of ways, this meant the architect becoming more of a provocateur, or someone who is facilitating community movements and efforts. So rather than waiting for projects to land on their front porch, these architects are going out there and meeting with the community, talking about their needs, talking about which things are maybe alienating them or are obstacles for them—and then coming up with solutions for how to overcome those obstacles.
Through the AIA Seattle Travel Scholarship, I traveled to six locations, three within the U.S. and three abroad: Los Angeles; New Orleans; Newbern, Ala.; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Madrid, and Venice. I began to catalog architect efforts in these locations and what sort of participatory design efforts they were doing. Through an exhibition at the end of my scholarship, I attempted to disseminate that information to the public, so that attendees could better understand the profound impact of the built environment and the role that we all play in shaping it, and the role that it plays in shaping us.
At NAC, we host community workshops and we always involve end users throughout the process. It’s never just one conversation and it’s done—it is a mutual visioning process. It gives us the opportunity to rethink our role as architects within the community, to be provocateurs and facilitators for change— to question the status quo and envision a world that better reflects our collective aspirations. If we’re solely focused on building new buildings, it narrows our field of focus and excludes a lot of opportunities for impact. At our heart, we’re critical thinkers, we’re thoughtful citizens. As COVID winds down in the U.S. and we shape our built environment post-pandemic, these conversations are important—to think about the role that the architect plays in reshaping our cities, schools, and public spaces to ensure that they respond adequately to the needs we realize we have as a community. Being proponents of these conversations can be something profound for the profession. —As told to Katherine Flynn
