Meet Joe Lambke of Animate

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Lambke.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
When I studied architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology back in the 1980s, modernism was already old.

A surprising adventure was provided by the Jerrold Loebl Traveling Fellowship. This enabled me to travel around the world for six months, studying the way different people live in very different ways. Long ago it included an introduction to lifestyles in Communist countries.

By 1995, riding a motorcycle back from the Santa Fe Institute, I realized architecture is really about living. It’s more than breathing life into stale and monumental modern architecture.

Animate was founded to design and build architecture as a means to enlighten the ways we live. Spaces designed by Animate bring new civilized interactions between different people, as well as between people and their space. After all, people use space to accomplish great things, and we think architecture assists their activities.

Has it been a smooth road?
Between riding a motorcycle, and reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on a sailboat in Greece, I learned not all roads are smooth. Of course it depends how far one wants to travel… at Animate we work to change future potentials.

There have been great highs and a few traumatic lows. In hindsight the traumatic lows are a tiny bit funny… but only after surviving them. Gaining great employees and then losing them, because work did not follow through, was disheartening. Luckily we have worked with many, many different types of Owners through the years.

In summary, the biggest obstacle, challenge or struggle has been small ideas, or a kind of dogmatic, limited thinking. We have had interviews for projects that go well, but an organization can’t bring themselves to try a different approach. Looking back to the 1890s, Chicago built many great things with a risk-taking adventurism.

More recently imagine if they said the John Hancock Building was too tall for the neighborhood; or, that the Glessner House needed more windows; or the Reliance Building needed fewer windows; or that Hotel Soffitel needed to be built by a Chicago based architect… An old colleague working with us in Asia, continues to remind us that it takes great clients to achieve great results.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Animate… story. Tell us more about the business.
Animate… is a full service architecture firm. We specialize in Architecture, Objects, and Spatial Studies.

One of the coolest projects we designed was an accessible revetment structure for Chicago’s lakefront. It retains Chicago’s swampy landfill against the ravages of Lake Michigan’s moods. Accommodating Lake Michigan water level fluctuations across decades, Animate designed a people friendly, truly swimmable shoreline.

One of the most peaceful houses we designed is a concrete house in the woods of Northern Michigan.

When we designed and built the Theory and Computing Sciences Building at Argonne National Laboratory, we became known for surprising the biggest firms in Chicago.

Small things are important too, like resisting coffee spillage from wobbly cafe tables. Animate recently completed the “aniTable 3” and this Object is special. There is a pleasant sensation when having a coffee or conversation, reading or eating, and thinking at this table.

Kid Cities, Animate’s Urban Design strategy, emerged from research at the Santa Fe Institute. After years of Spatial Studies, Kid Cities is the way to make truly livable cities for all people in the 21st century. Kid Cities is a way to avoid the contradictions, cul-de-sacs and redundancies of 20th Zoning paradigms, with a special focus on access to effective transportation.

Freed from dogmatic thinking, Chicago has the potential to significantly add to the 21st century. Jettisoning 20th century thinking Chicago doesn’t need to build more of what we already have (another museum on the lakefront), or build in ways that mimic existing places (a cute suburban neighborhood on top of an old steel mill). And Chicago can’t compete with Silicon Valley, mostly because we have a different set of resources and circumstances.

Released from politics and handicaps of old ways of doing, Chicago’s potential to become a world leader in organic high-tech farming is an untapped resource. Teamed with great clients, and developing radically new building types, Chicago could once again reclaim its long-lost title as the center of architecture, world-wide.

Always willing to add insight to Chicago’s challenges Animate is on the lookout for great clients. In the meantime, its back to Animate’s primary business Architecture, we are excited about our building system prototype. Stay-tuned!

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Funny you ask… the architecture and design industry, or the more complete architecture, engineering & construction industry? Of course there are changes everywhere. The Associated Colleges of Illinois, where I was a Board Member for many years, is grappling with similar changes as the AEC industry: information technology adaptation, collaborative models, and streamlined operations for cost reductions. There are some great Liberal Arts Colleges in Illinois, and some are delivering lasting skills to diligent, team-focused students.

Looking at the whole architecture, engineering & construction industry (AEC), we think there is an epochal shift from custom-designed one-offs to higher-quality, prefabricated, project delivery systems. In fact we are working on two prototypes right now with Animate Build. Upcoming changes are more than the long overdue transition from AutoCAD to BIM.

Building types are systemically related to firms that specialize in them. There is a reason why one firm does residential high-rises, another does offices, and another type of firm does glamour pieces. These all represent project delivery systems. While glamour firms think they sell design, they really plug into a glamour system: entertaining wealthy clients and/or contributing needed social capital to their clients. Animate is working to develop brand new building types, and is re-thinking how and why we build cities in the 21st century.

Expertise is needed and we collaborate frequently to break these molds. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek has a few ideas about architecture. He attempts to pin down a kind of architecture that influences our lives. Like Animate, he too thinks that rather than occasional glamour pieces, it is the everyday buildings that matter. Animate works at the early design stages to visualize and develop new living strategies. Sometimes Animate ideas are implemented by bigger firms, and other times our clients enjoy the results.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.animatearchitecture.com
• Phone: 312 493.3476
• Email: joe@animatearchitecture.com

Image Credit:
Animate, Inc.

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