WaterShapers from Outer Space

An Interview by Lenny Giteck

Since 1971 when they jointly founded The Dirsmith Group, an architecture, landscaping and engineering firm headquartered in Highland Park, Ill., Ron and Suzanne Dirsmith have established a distinguished track record of designing imaginative structures and environments that often pay homage to the beauty of nature — particularly the element of water.

In the late 1950s, just four years after completing his architecture and engineering studies, Ron became a Fellow in Architecture of the American Academy in Rome, a highly prestigious research and study center for America’s most promising artists and scholars. (Only 172 architects have been thus honored in the Academy’s 100 year history.)

As part of the fellowship, the couple and their two children lived in Rome and traveled some 40,000 miles throughout Europe, camping in a VW van. From Scandinavia to the Greek islands, the Dirsmiths visited and studied European antiquities and classical sites — including many spectacular fountains and other waterfeatures. It was, they now assert, a life-altering experience that greatly influenced their architectural practice.

In addition to being a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Ron was elected to the National Academy of Design in New York, putting him in the company of such architectural luminaries as I.M. Pei, Philip Johnson and Frank Gehry.

Suzanne Roe Dirsmith, President and Design Facilitator of The Dirsmith Group, holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Education, with an emphasis on art and dance. Her strong artistic background enables her to have a major role in shaping the work the firm does. Although her husband has the formal technical training, the two are very much equal partners who function synergistically.

Recently we spoke with the Dirsmiths about their design philosophy and approach.

You say your two-year European sojourn had a great impact on you. In what way?

Ron: For one thing, we really didn’t understand fountains and water until we lived in Europe — even though we came from Chicago, with Lake Michigan and the great Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. But those were our only real experiences with water before we went to Rome.

Suzanne: Spending a lot of time traveling around Europe and living outdoors in a Volkswagen camper made us absolutely enthralled with the beauty of nature. We thought a great deal about what it means to utilize nature to maximize the human spirit. But it wasn’t just an aesthetic lesson; we also gained valuable engineering knowledge about using natural elements in our designs.

What did you learn about water?

Ron: Seeing the multitude of ways different fountain designers had shaped water through the years was extremely exciting. One thing that struck us immediately was that, obviously, most of the great waterfeatures from the classical tradition — the ones that people love to this day — were generated without any kind of electricity or motor. It was all done by the absolutely brilliant use of gravity, sluice gates, valves and so forth. These builders were geniuses in knowing how to control water.

Suzanne: The experience taught us that the joy of water comes from the nearly infinite variety of rhythms you find in nature. Water can come down in torrents, as in a thunderstorm, or it can move very delicately, as in a tiny stream. We learned that if you want to insert these kinds of experiences in an architectural project, it’s critical that you do so in a way that appeals to both the eye and the ear.

Ron: Almost every project we’ve done in the past decades has incorporated water in one way or another. We’ll talk with a client about how soothing and rejuvenating waterfeatures are, how they touch the human spirit in some deep fashion, and the client will say, “I hadn’t thought about that before but it sounds interesting. What would it look like?” Then we’ll make a sketch for them, and we might take them somewhere that has one or more waterfeatures similar in size and scale to what we envision for their project.

Where, for example?

Ron: We’re very fortunate to live next to the Chicago Botanic Garden, which includes a myriad of amazing water installations. We take our clients there because it really shows them the almost limitless possibilities of ponds, lakes, fountains, flowers and other plant materials. It also shows different possible seating configurations that enable people to enjoy waterfeatures.

Suzanne: Even if certain clients don’t verbally articulate their feelings when we go to the botanic garden, the visit almost always touches their spirit in some way. It reaches them emotionally, and having that connection is extremely important to a successful project.

Why?

Suzanne: When we develop a real relationship with a client — when we gain a deep understanding of what touches them emotionally and what their life history and path have been — we can borrow something from all that and incorporate it in the project. This even extends to corporate clients: There’s almost always something from a company’s history or culture that we can bring to a project.

I’ll give you an example. We recently finished a project for a synagogue here in Chicago. The courtyard we designed incorporates a stone from the ancient fortress of Masada in Israel, a stone that was brought back from a visit by one of the congregation’s officers. Something like that makes the project so much more meaningful and integral to clients.

How do you go about finding out what clients really want?

Ron: Actually, we begin by telling them we’re from another planet.

Another planet?

Ron: This started with one of my great professors and mentors, Ambrose Richardson. Both Suzanne and I were students at the University of Illinois; I had just finished my advanced work in structural engineering and was about to graduate. One day I wandered into an old Navy barracks on campus and saw all these drawings on the wall that didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. And standing there was this tall, lanky guy, Professor Ambrose Richardson, head of the university’s graduate School of Design.

As it turned out, the drawings were part of his students’ thesis project. He had given them an assignment to design a living environment to house a husband, wife and two kids who came from another planet in another universe. The alien beings were here in order to study our world and learn about nature on Earth. According to the assignment, these extraterrestrials didn’t look at all like humans, but they did have many of our other characteristics: They loved water, music, sex, wine, great food and so forth.

What did you think when he told you this?

Ron: The concept blew my mind! When I asked him about the purpose of this unusual exercise, he explained that it’s very easy for an architect commissioned to design a house, school, church or whatever, to just automatically fall into using a 30 by 30 grid, 12 by 12 concrete columns…

Suzanne: Everything predictable.

Ron: Exactly. Ambrose gave the assignment to encourage his students to take a completely fresh approach. It enabled them to think freely, rather than from a restricted point of view. Right then and there I decided I wasn’t going to graduate; I was going to continue my studies with this man. Instead of marrying Suzanne and starting a business right away, which had been our plan, we spent two more years at the University of Illinois.

And you’ve been extraterrestrials ever since?

Ron: We tell new clients we’re from another planet, then we ask them to write out what their vision is, keeping in mind that we know nothing about Earth. And we get their permission to ask all sorts of questions and to suggest things that may not be on the sheet of paper they give us. This usually generates a lot of interesting ideas, most of which have to be thrown out for various reasons. Some just aren’t practical, some would be too expensive and so on. But in the end we’re often left with a handful of really creative concepts that hadn’t been thought of before.

Suzanne: We’ve been very fortunate that a great many of our clients have been willing to invest themselves completely in the process. A lot of architectural firms have, say, a 30-minute interview with a new client and that’s it — they go off and start designing the project. They fill in the usual spaces, and they’re done. We consider it a true privilege every time we really get to know our clients and are able to soar together with them. When that happens, it’s a gem!

So what was life like on your home planet?

Ron: [laughing] In the area where we lived, it was wonderful. Totally free and creative. From my perspective as I look back on those years, it was sort of an extremely ethereal think tank with no restrictions whatsoever. It was great!

NEXT: In the second installment of this two-part interview, the Dirsmiths talk about their years working for Hugh Hefner — including designing the famous backyard pool and grotto at the Playboy Mansion West in Los Angeles. To read it, click here.