May’s Spotlight of the Month: Alex Webb

On his website, LA-based architectural designer Alex Webb writes that he is “primarily interested in performative algorithmic design, environmental sustainability, sustainable transit and building information modeling (BIM).” We caught up with Alex in Santa Monica, California to learn what the heck all of that means.

So… what exactly is performative algorithmic design anyway?
Yeah… it’s a pretty nerdy term. But algorithmic design is a method of designing the parts of a building through numbers and parameters and stuff, and letting them “self-organize”. You create how the pieces go together and how they relate to each other instead of starting with a preconceived idea of what your design will look like. It’s a pretty common technique in architecture schools and it tries to copy how living organisms grow and evolve.

Performative Algorithmic Design is when the parameters and numbers are based off of some sort of information set, and the building components organize themselves to have the building perform better. So, if you had a bunch of solar data, you could tell the components to assemble themselves so they shade windows during the summer and let in light during the winter. Stuff like that.

How did you become interested in that?
I really loved learning the usual Algorithmic Design in architecture school, but the more and more I learned the more and more I thought that we were just scraping the surface of what it could do. Most people would use the method to create insanely cool looking designs, which is great, but I was sort of obsessed with figuring out how to create something more than that.

I ended up doing my thesis with Performative Algorithmic Design and it’s been a bit of an obsession ever since.

As an architectural designer, do you incorporate sustainability in your designs?
Absolutely. My firm just signed on to the 2030 Challenge, so we’re all working to be able to meet it. It’s a really cool time to be involved with architecture- more and more people are trying to make their buildings greener and greener, so a lot of the time you have your clients pushing you to be green.

What kind of architecture/design is your primary focus?
I work mostly in airports and transportation. Even though most of the projects I’ve worked on have been airports, I’m becoming more and more interested in rail and bus line projects. So much of LA’s carbon footprint is generated from a really inefficient transit system- so I feel that one of the greenest things I could do would be to help change that.

What are some environmental challenges you face when designing those types of projects?
Well, the biggest one with airports is that typically people at an airport want to see the planes and the runways, so you end up with really large stretches of glass. Managing the heat gain that comes with that is a huge problem we face on every project we do.

What is building information modeling?
Nice! Another wonderfully nerdy topic… BIM is a new way of designing buildings with computers. With the old way, CAD, you used to basically draw lines that you would then label “doors” or “walls” or whatever. With BIM, you actually create door and wall “objects” in the computer model that have a relationship to the other objects (windows are in walls, lights are in ceilings, etc). So then you have a model that if you need to move something, like a wall, all of the doors and windows move with it. You also end up with a database of all of the pieces of the building, since you’re modeling the objects and not just drawing lines, so it’s easier to understand costs, construction time, and that sort of stuff.

You’re from Boston originally, did that have any impact on your current greenness?
I think that my roots in puritan New England made my hyper-obsession with efficiency and simplicity led to my interest in sustainability. I was the president of my environmental club in high school and in junior high I was voted “class granola,” so this has been going on for a while.

You surf, right?
Yeah- I started about 7 years ago when I moved to LA, and for a while I was surfing every day before work. I’m still not any good though- I grew up snowboarding so that’s my sport. But if I’m living by the ocean, nothing beats a nice morning in the water.

Isn’t it kind of gross to surf off the coast of Los Angeles?
It’s actually not that bad, but if you go after a storm it can really do some damage. A buddy of mine was in the hospital for a week because of an infection he got at the beach, and he came close to losing his leg. It’s fine if you pay attention to the weather, but you have to be really careful.

Are you involved with any environmental outreach groups like Heal the Bay?
Not as much as I should be- most of my volunteer time I spend helping a group called STOKED. They pair inner-city kids with mentors and then they both learn surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding. I help out as an instructor for the surfing and snowboarding parts, I’m no good at skating.

Why did you decide to become a blogger?
After I finished my thesis, I wanted to keep on learning how to integrate sustainability into different design techniques. Having a blog to write helped me go the extra distance in learning about different subjects.

We love the categories on your blog! They range from architecture and urban planning to food.
Thanks! Yeah, the focus of the blog really spread out once I started writing, but I think everything still relates to sustainable design in some way or another. So much of design is understanding the range of possibilities that are out there, so a lot of the time I’m documenting work that I think is either significant or innovative in some way.

What’s up with the geometry topic?
Yeah… the geometry topic is a little lacking at the moment. But geometry is where design on a building component level can have some sort of performative quality- so it’s in there, I just need to post more about it.

You’re big into composting. How did you get into that?
I think that goes bad to the puritan obsession with efficiency… I cook a lot with vegetables, so I got tired of throwing broccoli stalks and apple cores away. My composter is just a big trash can with a lid and an opening at the bottom. I put the parts of fruits and vegetables I don’t use in there, and 8 – 10 months later I have great compost for the veggies I grow. It’s great- no smell, no bugs, no problems at all, and I’m not putting reusable plant matter in a landfill.

Tell us about reFarm
1/5th of our country’s gasoline is used for transporting food, so I’m really interested in how we can reduce that. The problem with that is typically we live really far from the food we eat. While many people’s idea of sustainable living is a pastoral cottage in the woods somewhere, the reality is that there isn’t enough space to make that happen and even if we could it would be really inefficient. We need the efficiencies of cities to create a sustainable planet, but they just need to function better. The reFarm Project looks at cities on a case by case basis, and tries to determine what urban farming techniques would work there. Like in the case of LA you could utilize all of the low rise warehouses for rooftop farming, while Houston has a huge amount of abandoned office buildings where you use hydroponic techniques on a large level. reFarm looks at the different urban landscape of different cities, and tries to figure out how you could grow food in the city itself, so you don’t have to transport it there from somewhere else.

To learn more about Alex, check out his website, alexwebb.com