Java.Mar.2016

Please tell us about the Globe/Miami project.
The Frank Lloyd Wright School will help this
community reimagine itself through a four-year
collaboration. While we are not contractors,
engineers or real estate developers, the school can
bring several things: the expertise and the prestige of
the Frank Lloyd Wright tradition; students and faculty
from all over the world who are incredibly creative
and energetic; an organic hands-on approach and
learn-by-doing attitude.
We will set up an advisory committee and develop
strategies to deal with persistent problems like
property degradation, higher drug usage, cycles of
boom and bust and the departure of millennials, who
are often quick to leave for Phoenix—to help build
a town that they want to live in through community
engagement. We want to improve key properties, like
the library. Even small gestures like painting buildings
or adding a sports field to a dirt lot can change a place.
The area around Globe/Miami is being strongly
considered for federal “Promise Zone” designation,
which would make it one of only about 15 areas
around the country. This status would bring in a
tremendous amount of resources through various
grants and funding sources. We would help manage
and advise throughout this process.
Aaron Betsky is a force of nature in the world of art, architecture and design. Throughout his career he
has worked as an architect, curator, museum director, educator, critic and author of many books. Last
year, he took over as dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, during a time when the
school was at risk of losing its accreditation.
The Higher Learning Commission changed its bylaws in 2012 to prohibit schools from being part of larger
non-academic institutions, forcing a separation from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which had owned and
operated the school for decades.
A fundraising effort was launched to bring in the $2 million that would allow the school to operate
independently. That effort paid off—by the end of 2015 the campaign had raised $2.1 million, with a large
portion of the funds coming, surprisingly, from the Arizona towns of Globe and Miami (over $700K). Those
donations had come in anticipation of a four-year collaboration that will bring the expertise of the school and
its staff to the neighboring communities, which are greatly in need of revitalization.
JAVA had the opportunity to interview Betsky at his new home at Taliesin West.
How does this effort tie into your philosophy
and the school’s mission?
There is the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright and his
notion that we can use architecture to make the
world a better place, while taking into account the
relationship we have with other humans and the
natural setting.
It’s all about the ways in which architecture can make
our designed environment more sustainable, open
and beautiful, and what techniques are available to do
that. That’s what a lot of my writing has been about.
I’ve become interested in people and situations that
are more on the margins, and the tactics that develop
from tough perspectives. We are working in Globe/
Miami to figure out a “Tactical Urbanism”—like so
many others around the world, trying to make tough
situations better in all kinds of ways.
How is Tactical Urbanism different from New
Urbanism?
It is totally in opposition. New Urbanism was an
attempt to make everything fit the modern ideal
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