Founded by Emily Abruzzo and Gerald Bodziak, Abruzzo Bodziak Architects (ABA) is an internationally recognized New York-based practice with experience ranging from civic and cultural projects to homes and exhibitions. Through both projects and speculative investigations, the office creates experiences that are rooted in place and time. ABA’s work is defined by an innovative approach to contextuality, relentless focus on detail, and a strong conceptual viewpoint. ABA’s current work includes a New York Public Library branch, a Manhattan retail hub for an international clothing brand, exhibition design for ‘Architecture Books: Yet to Be Written’ at Storefront for Art and Architecture, furniture design, and several residential projects.
Q > Tell us about an experiment or gamble that turned out be either disastrous or successful.
A > For any project, the initial idea is always a gamble: you need to take some risk, or else you’re repeating what’s already been done. That said, we aren’t really gamblers by nature; any risk inherently makes us nervous — the project has to work in the end. So we work intensively though mockups, models both physical and digital, drawings, etc. to make sure what we’re proposing will work, and along the way we simplify and refine it thinking through buildability. We think that this makes for successes in the end, but leave that determination open to our clients and the public at Large.
Q > What role does research play in your practice?
A > To us, research is a word that is grossly overused in architecture. Of course we do research, but it’s more about learning in an unscripted way. It’s banal, documenting the context or existing conditions; or its looking at precedent, technical details or materials; code; or it’s movies or some food we like or some fabric laying around the office from 10 years ago that ends up being relevant. There isn’t an agenda per se — we are really just very curious people. To this end, while we divide our work into “projects” and “investigations” — the latter of which are perhaps more closely tied to research since they could be texts or speculations outside of the stuff of typical architectural production — researching plays into both.
Q > Describe ABA’s ideal/dream brief.
A > We’d like to design a spiritual space.
Q > Give an example of something that frightens you?
A > As an architect, you’re typically reliant on the craftsmanship and skill of others to build the work by and large; additionally, there can be a level of unpredictability in site conditions, shifting client preferences or needs, etc., that affect the building in the end. When things start to become realized there is constant evaluating: will this or that look too big or too small, will the paint look right; in a lot of ways you hope that what you see looks at least a little strange: weird-good, and this can feel risky. You are also managing the formerly unknowns. The entire process can be a frightening experience. At best you can try to plan for everything — draw, model, and document as much as possible to anticipate all conditions and how things will go together — but in the end if what is achieved is 80-90% of what you have drawn, it will be OK.
Q > What’s the most satisfying part of your creative process?
A > It’s probably an unpopular thing to say, but the creative process for us is actually not that satisfying. It isn’t something that is by default unrewarding in the end, but the journey there can be difficult. We think this comes from our educational experiences, which instilled a burden of criticality and the need to know how the work fits into some larger context, which can be stifling. We do better when we stop trying so hard: solutions come in half-formed thoughts on the way somewhere, while cooking, or while sleeping.
When people start to use the building; when we stand in the space with our team and clients; when the photographer frames the work, seeing what you have done through their lens, hearing what they have to say, and seeing both what you had planned but also the results of what you had not specifically planned for: these are satisfying moments.
Q > Share some of your biggest influences or main sources of inspiration.
A > A question we keep coming back to, is, what is an American Architecture? What is the history of how we got here? How is it all related, and who was and is it for? We’re looking at new and old things all of the time in this context; currently we’ve been researching a lot of work of the 1960s and 70s which paired super deterministic planning and geometries with a laid-back self-build, bohemian-like execution.
Q > Is work personal to you? Do you keep your work separate from your personal life?
A > If you look at the other answers we’ve given here, you can see that it’s impossible to separate work from life entirely. Also, ideas take time, projects take work: these things all become quite personal. That could be seen negatively if you believe the articles circulating the internet about work-life balance, but do we really want people designing our homes and public spaces that don’t take their work personally?
Q > How do you see architecture and design changing in the coming years?
A > Here’s optimism: we think there will be an increased awareness of how good, purposeful design can impact quality of life; because of television and social media, awareness of this potential is expanded, paired with new understandings of how design of the built environment affects health and wellbeing. Good architecture is something more people should, and will, demand as a right. At the same time, technology is making it so that small practices can operate more nimbly, democratising the profession.
Emily Abruzzo received her Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College and her Master of Architecture from Princeton University, where she also received a Certificate in Media and Modernity and was named a Fellow at The Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. Currently a Critic at the Yale School of Architecture, Emily is a founding editor and publisher of 306090 Books, and a 2014 MacDowell Fellow.
Gerald Bodziak received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and his Master of Architecture from Princeton University. He is a Fellow of The Forum and Institute for Urban Design, and has taught design and construction courses at numerous institutions including Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.