The co-founder of the New York firm Sage and Coombe Architects, Jennifer Sage has left an indelible mark on her native city, aiding post-Sandy rebuilding efforts and designing prominent civic and cultural institutions.
What is your greatest achievement?
Keeping a small firm practice thriving for more than two decades.
What is the most memorable moment of your career?
Every time we complete a project, it becomes the most memorable moment of my career. Watching the firefighters take over their new “house,” participating in the opening of the Rockaways after Superstorm Sandy, or seeing young readers in the Fort Washington neighborhood find their places under the library’s jumbo graphic lampshades—they are each the most memorable moment.
What was your most rewarding collaboration?
The most rewarding collaboration is, of course, the one that keeps going: our studio, with Peter Coombe, AIA, and every other member of each project team.
What inspired your interest in public design?
The best and the worst of my New York City childhood: the decrepit subway stations of my high school years, the glories of Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, my favorite local library on lower Seventh Avenue. Perhaps my interest was always lurking below the surface, but I don’t think I could articulate it until I started building—when the power of the opportunity became palpable.
What influence has New York had on your practice?
New York has had everything to do with our practice. It is where I grew up, where I live, and where I’ve worked—with Steven Holl, FAIA, with I.M. Pei and his partners Jim Freed and Harry Cobb, and, since 1995, with Peter Coombe. It’s a place that thrives on collision and contrast: of grids, forms, and cultures. We are all working together in parallel and sometimes in collaboration, and it breeds a certain tolerance, curiosity, and generosity—a large part of what is key to great public design.
What role should architects play in the planning and design of our public buildings and spaces?
Architects should be part of the planning and design of our public buildings from the very start. So much of a project is typically defined before the architect even enters the room—in siting, orientation, in scope. We were involved early in defining the needs of our track and field building at Ocean Breeze on Staten Island—through public listening sessions, construction strategies, sustainable approaches—and it all informed the success of design as both a neighborhood recreation center and the regional competitive track it is today.
What role did your firm play in post-Sandy rebuilding efforts?
As part of Mayor Bloomberg’s Design Excellence initiative, we were tapped in December 2012 to help open the beaches at the Rockaways for Memorial Day 2013. Construction began while we were still finishing the drawings. The mission was to create a series of accessible entries bridging city to beach—what became known as islands. We created a series of theatrical moments: a ramp cast with beach glass opening onto an island, which in turn opened onto a series of monumental, stepped platforms that we fabricated from the hardwood of the salvaged boardwalk. It became a setting from which to watch and be watched, energizing the community and sending a signal that the city would revive.
What has been the importance of the city’s Design Excellence Initiative to your practice?
It has proven that public policy can play a pivotal role in making meaningful civic contributions. It requires enlightened public leaders and administrators who enjoy the process and believe in the power of design, in turn making designers and the communities we serve more optimistic about the power of our own work.
What role should public design play in a post-pandemic world?
The support of public design initiatives is increasingly important in addressing economic inequality: funding and treating each neighborhood as equal to the next, thereby allowing public work to be the palpable expression of care, support, and equity.
What’s the greatest challenge facing architects today?
Convincing skeptics who do not understand that great design is important to the diversity, equality, and health of American cities. And, that it can be completed on budget and schedule, and can be tough enough to endure the wear and tear of nonstop civic life.
What are your ambitions for the coming five years?
I’d like to expand our repertoire both programmatically and geographically, and see architects working more closely with key planners and decision makers to identify and shape needs and effect. And, of course, I would like to continue to work on the core projects of our shared cultural and civic lives: libraries, firehouses, museums, schools, train halls, and open spaces.
What do you hope your legacy will be?
That great public architecture can be unexpected, serious and unserious, and have secrets that are discovered over time. And that a mix of languages—graphic, material, and in form—can all define public architecture.
What’s the one question you wished we had asked (and the answer to that question)?
Oh my. These have been hard enough! I’m just glad you did not ask me what my favorite building is.
What does it mean to win the Award for Excellence in Public Architecture?
It is an enormous and validating honor for me and my colleagues. It is confirmation that others share our conviction that great public architecture is core to the life of our communities.
