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Deborah Snoonian (AR): Give me a little bit of background about yourself.

Jordan Parnass (JP): For undergrad I went to Brown and I studied art and semiotics and some film making. I also spent a year abroad at the Architectural Association in London, so I did have that as a formative architectural background. But I went to Columbia for grad school in architecture. And I graduated there in 1993. After that I went to work for Bernard Tschumi who is the dean, in his architectural office. I worked there during grad school and afterwards, so probably for about a year and a half. After that I moved to Montreal for a while and got a commission to do a country house which was a fun little project. And I worked with another firm who was doing [the country house] supervision in their offices for about 9 months. And then I came back to New York and I formed a firm with 2 of my friends from grad school, called a + i design. And I was there until the end of 1997. We started out doing very much what I am doing now which was to try to combine architectural projects with information design. So in the sense that we would do websites and CD-ROMS and some graphics along with architecture. The idea being, we felt like we needed to integrate the technology into our practice. We felt like at that point it was really counterproductive to ignore what was going on in the world of computers and technology and we were all very interested in it from artistic perspective and from a production perspective as well. So it was really trying to find a way to explore our dual passions. In the end it didn’t quite work out that way and I left to start my own firm for a number of reasons. Mostly because I felt like I needed to be able to really pick the projects that I wanted to work on. From that time I’ve been working from home – I have a loft in DUMBO where I have my offices and now I keep my overhead low and this allows me to more selectively pick the projects that I want. And I have no permanent staff. I bring in people on a contract basis to work on projects with me. Which means I can be flexible and get the best kind of people for the appropriate projects, as opposed to having to have a one-size-fits-all approach. So far it’s worked out very well and I’ve done a number of projects as you can see on my website (www.digital-architecture.com). I’ve done, on the architecture side, mostly interiors work, some commercial, a few retail projects.

AR: Do you have a set group of people that you work with over and over again? How do you find your staff?

JP: It’s word of mouth, almost always. I get 20 or 30 job seeking letters and emails a week. And I have a big file, and I categorize it by the different skill sets and I do go through that file and call people up when I need help. But I would say 75 percent of the people I work with I’ve worked with before or who worked with people I know. It’s like in any industry, a recommendation is worth 10 times more than someone who comes in cold off the street. And it’s a small enough community in New York in the architectural world that people move from place to place and I certainly have friends in a number of different offices and it tends to work out quite well.

AR: I’ve noticed you do a lot of web site design… do you have a preference do those kinds of projects over architectural projects or is it just you’re interested in technology?

JP: Yeah, I’m interested in both. The websites tend to be smaller. My current website work has almost always been smaller in scale than the architectural work. Mostly because I’m not interested in working for a year on Proctor & Gamble’s website or something big like that. I tend to pick smaller projects where I can completely direct the operation from start to finish, and where it’s not just about sitting around for a thousand hours cranking out similar pages. So, what interested me was interface design and the aesthetics of the information. I work with a client on what they call the information architecture of the site, and the flow between the different pages, and also develop functionality and the actual aesthetics of the interface, down to the graphics of the colors and the typefaces and all that stuff.

AR: You have training in art as well as architecture… would you say your architectural training has enlivened your website design capabilities?

JP: Absolutely. There are a significant number of people doing the sorts of things I’m doing now—people with architectural training who move into either straight web design or motion graphics or computer animation. If you have a broad-based artistically derived architectural training, [which] most of the big architecture schools work in this way—they train you to be an overall architect in the sense that it’s not just about knowing how to put things together and how to spec materials and how to do structures, it’s about thinking about a project in its totality, thinking about the process of the project over time, and how to come up with a very strong theoretical and conceptual framework that your project fits into. Certainly in the last 10 or 15 years there’s been a very strong conceptual basis for almost all the work that’s been produced [in the academies]. And to some degree that removes it from architectural realities, but at the same time it allows you start a project and come up with a very strong theoretical underpinning for your project, which is very relevant when you’re doing websites or any other information design, because you need to step back and really understand what this mess of information is and what the best and most economical way to organize it is going to be that will allow people to get into it and get the most out of it. So what that means is that you can think systematically and architecturally, and I can’t think of a better word for it. But you really approach the project with the kind of mental direction which can be very appropriate for actually getting the thing done.

AR: When you’re designing an architectural project, say a house or some of your interiors work, do you still draw? Or do you do everything on the computer?

JP: I definitely sketch. I certainly never draft by hand, that’s just total torture to me. It’s just unbelievable how physically demanding drafting is. I did it for years until I had access to proper drafting technology, but there’s certainly no reason to draw with a straight edge and an ink pen or a lead holder or something. But I always sketch and I have a sketch book which I carry around with me and I like to sketch in ink because I feel like it gives me, makes me think a little bit, I don’t think while I sketch, but at the same time sketching in pencil I just find is too rough. So I like to work with ink and for every project I do I always make multiple sketches, even the web projects. Whether it’s just conceptualizing the flow, or thinking about interface elements, you know there’s still that kind of brain-hand connection which I think we’re still 15 years away from having with computer technology. There isn’t that interface. Holding a mouse or holding a joy stick or even a glove, any of those kinds of things isn’t the same. It’s still too removed. It’s still not immediate enough. Your hand can just do this and immediately ideas get projected onto the page. And I can then take those ideas and sketch them up on a computer. I work in 3D extensively as well. I tend to actually do 3D work before I do the 2D drawings. Or concurrently, because I do like to design in 3D and I find that working in elevation and section is not that useful until I get farther along in the project when it’s time to really nail the locations of things or proportions.

AR: What kind of software are you using for design? For say 3D conceptual drawings?

JP: For 3D I use Form Z. And I also use, I started using Maya recently, which I find is very interesting software. For 2D I use Vector Works and I also use AutoCAD. I started off being totally Mac-based, and in the last year I moved to PC as well, but I work on both platforms still. And a lot of my clients use Macs and so it’s very helpful for me to be able to work on software that works on both platforms. And VectorWorks and Form Z both work on both platforms. So I can go to someone’s office and quickly make changes while they’re looking over my shoulder, which I find very helpful.

AR: Do you think the new tablet computers will be a big deal for architects? Would you think about switching to a different kind of input system like that? For sketching, say?

JP: I think ultimately it’s going to happen. Ultimately what we’re moving towards is digital paper, something very thin but durable that you can roll up or fold up and stick in your briefcase or pocket that you’ll be able to unfold anywhere that will be a super-high resolution display of say 300 dpi for at least 11 by 17 inches. And you’ll do everything directly on that and you’ll have a pen or any pen, or your finger or whatever you want and it will somehow be touch-sensitive and it will have a fulltime wireless connection your server in your office or wherever. You’ll be able to drop any document you want, you’ll be able to hit any notation for detail. I think the industry has to move towards this. When you think about it, the amount of paper spent on revisions on projects is enormous, even when everything is done digitally. You know the guys in the field are sitting there with blueprints and maybe the foreman has a laptop, but there are still grubby blueprints pinned up everywhere, and things are getting ripped up and you go to these meetings with them and it’s got to move to be all digital. It’s so obvious and it’ll make everyone’s life so much easier. But the presentation technology is not there yet. As soon as it starts getting close, I’ll be there. But for right now it’s still sketch by hand, draft digitally, and print on paper.

AR: Let’s talk about the Remote Lounge, which is a really interesting project. I was there recently and spoke briefly to one of the partners.

JP: The three partners are Bob Stratton, Leo Fernekes, and Kevin Centanni .

AR: It’s Kevin that I met. Was it their idea to have this kind of TV camera installation, or was that more your idea? Did you work with them on the concept?

JP: Yeah, they basically came to me with this idea for a bar that would have this sort of teleconferencing system.

AR: All they said was "bar with teleconferencing" and you said "okay"?

JP: Right, they came to the table with that. But they also had a hodge-podge of ideas of what this bar might be like. Kevin comes from a nuts-and-bolts technology background where he builds interactive kiosks for trade shows, and he works extensively with things like video walls, so in his mind it was going to be this big black box with a video wall. Leo, who is the engineer behind the video conferencing system, comes from a product design perspective, in the sense of how to make something and then how to manufacture it, so in his mind, it was going to be more like a traditional bar but with technology inserted. Bob Stratton founded a big web development firm called Rare Medium and he left a couple of years ago—so he came from a more visual perspective, but a less technologically-oriented perspective. I came into the mix and I really saw it as my job to take all their influences and ideas and conceptions of what this thing might be, and try to put it together in a coherent way and also work to overcome a little bit of a leaning towards a grunge-tech aesthetic. They’re three guys, not at all intimidated by technology, and for them, monitors stacked in the corner and lots of exposed wires would be great. That would be their idea of the perfect bar. But I reminded them that they needed to be able to bring in couples and particularly women, who do not want to walk into a dark grungy place and just play with technology. Because for a lot of guys that’s all you need.

AR: You’d get some women, but you wouldn’t get couples…

JP: Not to mention that you have to overcome the fact that it was essentially a bar where you went and people stare at you on video cameras, which for a lot of people is disturbing in and of itself. So, I had to take all of this and figure out how we could use the technology and do it within a really strict budget. They really didn’t have that much money to spend on the interior, they had to spend a lot on base-building upgrades. [The Lounge] is in a former electrical supply store which had been there for 60 or 75 years, all the floorboards were rotted out, there’d been a fire there, there was a big coal furnace in the basement with 60 years’ worth of ash piled up in the sub basement. So when it came down to putting money into doing the finish, we were very constrained. This is something that I’m constantly confronted with: clients who have a very progressive vision, but small bank accounts. Which is fine, it’s more of a challenge. So I tried to organize [the Lounge] around bringing people together while they’re using the technology. That’s why you have a lot of those banquette areas and the consoles, the shape of the consoles themselves itself was very much defined by the technology that goes into it. To meet the price points, we couldn’t use LCD screens, we had to use regular CRTs, and because there are 2 CRTs back-to-back, that defines the profile. So they’re a little bit bulbous and so I tried to play off on the bulbousness by rounding them, making them look a bit Jetson-y. So there is a bit of a retro theme, but I hope it wasn’t too much. It’s more in the consoles than in the overall look of the bar. It is future-present pushed out 10 degrees.

AR: Jetsons was the word everybody used here when they saw it.

JP: The consoles are very Jetsons. There’s definitely—and this is everywhere now—there is a nostalgia for a time when there was technological optimism, beyond the kind of techno-hype of the Internet. It’s just a time when people felt like modern was good and the world would be a better place with technology. You even see it on covers of your magazine [Architectural Record] from earlier decades—unapologetic shots of big concrete buildings. People weren’t afraid of modern and crisp and hard-line. And that’s almost completely gone from our culture. And I think that’s really sad. The way you can bring that back is to make it playful. There’s a lot of that stuff [in Remote Lounge] that was very playful. I used a very bright color palette, I mixed it up with the floor patterns, and introduced more kind of familiar materials, like the vinyl which we used on the banquettes. We tried to do it a slightly more offbeat way. All of the materials are actually quite low-end. Concrete floors, vinyl, paint.

AR: It didn’t strike me as upscale, but it wasn’t grunge either. Maybe you want to comment on this—here’s a place where people go, perhaps with a group of people, or with their boyfriend or something to socialize. There are people gathered around these screens looking at each other, but often you’d see somebody craning their neck to try to really see the person that they see on the screen in front of them. Do you think there’s a certain distancing that happens with those cameras helping you look at people instead of actually looking at people? There’s obviously a paradox of being in a public place and looking at people in there on a TV screen, when you could just look at them in person instead.

JP: This was an ongoing debate during the process of designing the place, because even within the consoles there’s 3 different means of communicating. You have the video connection, you can also pick up the phone and talk with them, or you can send messages on the screen. There was a big debate over whether there should be a phone. Should you be able to have that kind of immediate connection? The other thing is that most of the cameras are black and white, not color—the color cameras don’t work as well in low-light conditions. So you get these levels of abstraction, of distanciation. There’s nothing more gross than a zoomed-in picture of someone’s sweaty face when they’re all drunk and stuff. So the idea was to try and have one more level of abstraction before you actually get right up to the full facial shot of someone sitting up at the bar. One theory was, well, we want to provide different levels of connectedness, whether it’s a message, or a video image, and then finally maybe a phone call. People should be able to escalate to the point where they can actually have a conversation with someone. But another theory was you really just want to make that initial connection on a screen, but then you should get up and walk over and meet them at the bar for a drink or something. I don’t know, I think it will remain to be seen how it gets played out. I think everyone approaches it differently depending on their level of comfort.

If you just look at a historical example -- AT&T invented the video phone in 1972 or something, but it’s still not popular—but not because it isn’t technologically possible. People don’t want other people to see what they look like when they’re talking on the phone. So there are definitely some questions there, b ut I think that’s also why it’s interesting, because it is a little bit scary. It’s not just about "well, I’m sitting down and drinking my beer, and I’m just talking with someone," it’s like someone’s seeing you, lots of people, and there’s a little bit of energy I think which happens in that connection which you wouldn’t get at other places.

There are certainly traditional telephone bars. They were around in the 1950s and 1960s, and you could dial someone’s table, you know. But it’s different when you don’t necessarily have the line of sight and you can really see a person.

The other thing that’s interesting is that you can look at whatever you want, even when you’re talking to people, and you can control their cameras, which is a very interesting concept. It’s not just the way you broadcast this image of yourself—it’s actually letting people come in and direct the movie about you. They can move the camera anywhere they want or way or they can direct another camera and send that image to you. So it really starts to ask some interesting questions about privacy and how much privacy are we willing to give up in order to experience new things and meet other people

AR: I’m camera shy, and so being there was not a comfortable thing for me.

JP: It’s funny, I completely ignore it now when I go there. It doesn’t even bother me, I don’t even think twice about it. Somehow once I know that I could potentially be being watched at any moment, I just assume that I am being watched. And within five or ten minutes I forget about it.

AR: Where do your influences come from when you’re doing the sort of work you did at Remote Lounge?

JP: Well there is by now a 30- or 40-year history of media art and technology art, and I’m very interested in it. In terms of how [past projects] trickle down to the projects, it really depends on the client’s comfort level with the amount of stuff that they’ll let me do. Before Remote Lounge I did some office space for a web design company called Fusebox. That was very interesting, working with designers. They were very open to me using interesting colors and materials, but also super nit-picky about everything because they were designers themselves. In their lobby, I was able to do a little touch-screen installation, using flat panels, which I think came out very well. We also worked out a way that their website could be integrated into the lobby. That’s still not implemented yet, but they were very open to trying to take some of what they do in the online Internet world and bring it into their physical space. The project I did before that was the Oscar Bond Salon. There, I worked with a collaborator, and in the waiting area we installed webcams and a high speed Internet link and we had two iMacs suspended on poles; the idea was that webcams would actually broadcast images from the salon onto the website. And there was also a chat application on the website, and you could go there and chat with the people waiting to have their haircut, or with the people at the salon and interact with them and really see what was going on. Each of the cutting stations at the salon is wired for video cameras and sound. There are multiple monitors in the salon as well, so you can see, for example, what’s happening in the back of your head, or what’s happening in the beauty area. And those images can also be uploaded to the website. So it’s not necessarily a purely artistic project, but it’s a way to expand the definition of the salon to be more about communications and a more alternative definition of salon in terms of people getting together and talking.

AR: Do you watch TV?

JP: Sure, I love TV. I just got TiVo, which is very exciting. My main problem is that I don’t have time to watch TV, but there are two or three shows that I like to watch. I’m never home for them and I always forget to tape them, and so this is a new experience.

AR: Are you a technological optimist?

JP: Absolutely. I see the pitfalls, and I see the problems technology introduces - at the environmental level, and also at the interpersonal communications level. There are certainly a lot of tradeoffs, but overall, I have no doubt that technology is improving my life.

Interview | Profile