Sue Reed ’81 graduated from College with a degree in anthropology, but in her senior spring decided that she wanted to become an architect. Reed attended a masters program in architecture at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and has worked as a professional architect ever since. Reed currently is a member of the firm Smith and Vansant architects, the Norwich-based firm that has worked on renovating Zeta Psi fraternity, Casque and Gauntlet and the Triangle House.
What do you look for when renovating or updating an existing structure?
SR: We look at historic precedent quite a bit. It also has to do with what the building has like Zeta Psi had these beautiful arches inside — that was existing, all we did was clean that up and what’s the budget and what’s the alternative. The alternative [in Zeta Psi case] the alums were looking at tearing it down versus keeping it, so we had to sort through the strategies to do it.
What are challenges you have faced getting started in architecture?
SR: One of the challenges that we all had in 1981 was that there was a massive recession so we came out of college and there was no work. I wanted to get a job in the federal government but there was a hiring freeze on… I went home and lived with my parents and got a summer job at a museum and then was home unemployed applying to architecture school. So that’s not an atypical path for architects to have these pauses where you’re like regrouping and applying to school and trying to decided what in the world you’re going to do with yourself, so that’s a big challenge. Another, we were told pretty quickly this was not a field where you’re going to become rich. There might be a few rich architects but they aren’t typically that way because they’re good architects, they’re that way because they’re maybe a good investor or had family money, or- we were told in architecture school to marry rich and they weren’t entirely kidding but there weren’t really a lot of rich people at Virginia Tech so it was not that useful of advice. But the compensation is about like a schoolteacher, and the schoolteacher is going to get typically better benefits...it’s not typically a really well funded thing. You’re taught to appreciate the finer things in life but not how to pay for them. And they’re usually in architecture school pretty clear about that.
What keeps the field interesting for you?
SR: It’s always interesting. There are moments that are dull, I must say. And there are moments when you have deadlines and have to work to 11 o’clock at night — like I did Tuesday night — and email the stuff to the builder only to find that he didn’t bother to check his email and he didn’t get the thing the next morning. So there are frustrations, but it’s creative. I decided senior spring that I could go into...fields like being in museums or becoming an academic or becoming a journalist where you’re describing what other people do, and that can be really interesting but you know if I’m describing the Mayans well I have opinions about what things look like and I can design a temple just as well as they can, why shouldn’t I go and design things? I decided that I would be really fundamentally disappointed and I wouldn’t be happy in life if I wasn’t being creative.
What was different about undergrad vs graduate?
SR: Virginia Tech wasn’t that great in terms of classwork. I felt that it was kind of watered down because they were trying to do a quarter system like Dartmouth but they were doing five classes a quarter... One of the things that was really great at the architecture school was you studied what you were passionate in, because the professor really didn’t care about what class you were assigned to. You got a grade just to make the college happy, but they were mentoring you, teaching you, the whole time. If you were interested in studying the urban life of Istanbul then go and study the urban life in Istanbul or form a rock band or do performance art. You still had to get your projects in but they were about no just studying what you were given by professors to study and I was like oh, huh, what a concept.
Which, of the houses your firm has designed, would you most like to live in?
SR: This is a house up in Sugarhill, New Hampshire, for a couple without kids but with an active social life with their friends. They want to have everybody come up for the weekend and bring their bikes and go mountain biking and hiking and skiing, and so it had to accommodate that kind of stuff. Lots of places to sleep, one place for a guy under the stairway... It sometimes appears in catalogs, it’s been in Western Living, the Loewen Window Company uses it for adds, we’ve used it for competitions... I really like this house.
What advice would you give to students at Dartmouth who are considering the architecture career path?
SR: We have an alumni group called “Dartmouth Alumni in Design and Architecture” and one of our aims is to help the students with that really rocky path… going from [undergraduate program] to becoming an architect because you have to get your professional degree then you get a three-year internship then you have to take an exam and be employed two to three times along the way, so it’s really bumpy even if you know you want to be an architect right out of the gate. We try and help with that, so we’ve been doing portfolio workshops...we’re available for mentoring...it’s a national network of people, and we’re glad to help.
