Margaret Sullivan
“At its best, architecture is both a practical experience and a transformational experience. Architecture can be designed to give us joy, nurture us, and bring us together to experience something grand.”
#WomenWhoBuild, meet Margaret Sullivan,
Named one of Interior Design Magazine’s Rising Stars, Margaret is the visionary behind Margaret Sullivan Studio, a New York based full service design firm which empowers public libraries and other mission-driven institutions to realize their full potential. Since starting the firm in 2014, Margaret and her collegues have worked with library systems across the country, including the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, New York Public Library, DC Public Library, Richland (SC) Library, Salt Lake City Public Library and Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Prior to starting her own venture, Margaret had worked as the Director of Interior Design at H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture.
An incredible force in the design world, ArchNative was lucky enough to sit down with Margaret (virtually of course) to discuss her introduction to the field, her approach to each project she works on, her challenges and triumphs in starting her own firm, and what inspires her professionally.
Richland Library
Credit: Garrett Rowland
Can you tell me a little bit about your journey in Design? What was your first introduction to the field?
As a child, I was a maker, doer, crafter, and loved contemporary art and architecture. I was raised in Greenville, South Carolina, and we had a fabulous art museum that was built in 1972 and designed by a local firm called Craig, Gaulden and Davis. The museum is a modern gem, influenced by Pei’s National Gallery and Marcel Breuer’s design for The Whitney Museum’s original building. The collection carried an exquisite array of 20th century masterpieces -- Warhol, Gorky, Josef Albers, William H. Johnson, and native son Jasper Johns. The museum was fabulous exposure for a young person in a relatively small southern town. Coupled with the Le Corbusier-inspired library right next door where I could actually check out art pieces, this exposure launched my passion for art, architecture, and design. The first big “A” architecture I remember experiencing was when my mother took me to Atlanta when I was 11 and we went to The High Museum. She told me it was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim, and I started to understand how “movements” and formal explorations was how art, design, music, history, and culture influence and build on each other. From then on, my only request on every trip to every city I took, was to visit the museums.
What about the industry made you decide to pursue it as a career?
My route into this world of architecture and design has been unconventional, and the place where MSS exists in it is equally unconventional. I have two undergraduate degrees, a B.A. in Art History from Wake Forest University and a B.A. in Design from Clemson University. I love the profession of architecture because it is a practical expression of a contemporary condition. At its best, architecture is both a practical experience and a transformational experience. Architecture can be designed to give us joy, nurture us, and bring us together to experience something grand. It is the fact that great design has the ability to create places and experiences that contribute to our culture, our basic societal need to be a creative force, and to create the conditions for us, as individuals, to be our best selves, is a deeply powerful incentive. As a curious learner, one who loves collaboration, and one who loves to create beauty, and, even often provoke, going into architecture and design was a natural fit. As I have gotten older, I realize more and more that design is the tool, and our expertise, to create conditions for individuals, communities, cultures, and cities to thrive, is our “crusade.” Even more critically, through inclusive and participatory design practices that make design a vehicle for all of us to enjoy and apply to both day to day problem solving and to the creation of our environments that make us feel nurtured, connected, and creative.
“...I started to understand how “movements” and formal explorations was how art, design, music, history, and culture influence and build on each other.”
Cafe at Ives Squared Innovation Commons on the Green at the New Haven Free Public Library. Photo Credit: Garrett Rowland
How do you approach each project you work on ?
The best part of design is that that it is a rigorous process that enables a customized result! So- we start where every great designer begins… a blank piece of paper, that slight fear of our ability to deliver something awesome, and the faith that our iterative design process will both provide the “solution” to the clients need, and also provide them a building, an experience, and an engagement process that gives them and their communities something beyond their imaginations! For us, as designers of cultural, civic, and educational work, with a focus on public libraries, we always start with learning about the communities we are designing for, and also learning about the mission, vision, and values of our client’s organizations. In a deeply participatory process that involves community members, staff members, community leaders, we listen, learn, and build collaborative coalitions around what the goals of the community are, and what the project needs to do to fulfill the goals, needs and aspirations of the community. It is not until we have this clear understanding that we can begin to design. If our process didn’t explore the community’s goals as authentically as we do, we would not be able to embody their vision for their future library, future community center, future learning commons. For us, this process has allowed us to expand our practice into social justice and inclusion, because our work is authentically co-created by the community and applies the best practices of placemaking to weave the staff, the stewards of the community, into a “placekeeping” role, knowing that they have the ability to activate the architecture to bring gathering, learning, making, sharing, and entertainment experiences to life in these buildings that were designed specifically for their communities.
It is the firm’s unwavering mission that we are obligated to activate our public assets to their fullest potential to create and contribute to healthy communities. We believe intentional design can foster positive social change, strengthen social networks and cultural identities, and provide the forum for people to come together with shared dreams and shared lived experiences.
MSS Team Photo
Photo Credit: Zach Pontz
You are the founder of Margaret Sullivan Studio, can you tell us a little bit about the vision behind the studio and the work that your team has been doing?
We believe that design is a very powerful tool to create the conditions for a joyful, equitable, and prosperous world. And this approach requires us as designers to constantly learn, challenge our perspectives, and understand the challenges, barriers and the experiences of everyone who has experienced marginalization from our country’s public space. We design with intention, using form, scale, proportion to encourage gathering. We use color and pattern to honor unique communities by reflecting cultural references derived from the community’s pride.
When the firm launched in 2014, we were primarily providing visioning, programming and interior design services to our clients, in collaboration with architects. As we became aware of our client’s needs to use our human-centered, community-driven model to listen and learn from the community, activate strategic initiatives across all aspects of the organization, and our value as provocative, innovative thought leaders, with a focus on social justice and racial equity, we have been able to grow our services. We now provide authentic community engagement, strategic planning, curriculum development, master facilities planning, and conventional architecture and interiors services. Our ability to provide impact to our clients stems from strong, high trust partnerships with fellow experts in the educational industry, community economic development advisors, urban planners, service design experts, and architects.
What has been your favorite project to work on and why?
I’m so proud of all of our work and see it as an evolution! I’m proud of the 12 libraries that we renovated as part of the Library as Studio work in Columbia, South Carolina; I am proud that we’ve been able to work with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library system for five years to do strategic planning, master facilities planning, and design the interiors for two new buildings; I’m proud that we created an approach to design for equity and experiential learning by creating the design standards for the New York Public Library Carnegie branches, which they are applying system-wide; I’m proud that we could transform a Cass Gilbert-designed reading room in New Haven at the New Haven Free Public Library into a beautiful innovative commons to foster active entrepreneurship and ideation…I could go on! We’ve had such remarkable clients, collaborations and opportunities. The greatest joy of our work is how the communities respond: they love THEIR libraries, and they see themselves, and the ideas that they brought to the early conversations, in the final design.
STEM DJ Labs at Las Vegas Clark County Library
What has been the most challenging part of your career thus far? What has been the most rewarding?
I think the biggest challenge our industry faces right now is to look candidly at how the power structures that we operate within are undermining the goals we have to rapidly diversify the profession.
When I started the firm, I was committed to hiring only women, people of color, and those who are traditionally left out of the design profession. I didn’t express this as vocally as I do now, but it certainly has become a critical mission of our office to provide as many opportunities to those who want to be included in this industry. For our work, it also benefits our clients: the more diverse lived experiences we can bring to our design work, the more their diverse communities benefit.
“For our work, it also benefits our clients: the more diverse lived experiences we can bring to our design work, the more their diverse communities benefit. ”
Yet, as respected as we are, we still struggle with the endemic systemic power structures that are an accepted norm of our industry. And I worry that with an unstable economy, the historical tendency is for the folks that hold the power to hold on to it tighter, and the advocacy, generosity, agency, and risk taking that is critical to rapidly diversify the design industry will not be embraced. For us, as a firm, and for me, as its leader, I have focused on surfacing the unjust and unfair practices we have experienced as a result of contractually being a “sub-consultant” to projects, working “under” the architect’s contract, and the nature of this power coming from a capitalistic justification of “taking more of the revenue pie.” These have included being scoped out of projects without our agreement, not being involved in conversations about scope and role, not being paid for work completed, and not being recognized as a contributing design partner. These practices have almost become the norm in the architecture industry with the justification of “This is how we do business.” I know that as an advocate of the young people that work at MSS, and with my goal to empower them to change systems, and be leaders in the design industry, it is critical that we have candid conversations about these practices in the design industry.
Members of the MSS team volunteering at a Bronx Community Relief Effort distribution event.
What inspires you professionally?
What inspires me professionally is that I know that our work IS creating a more just, prosperous, and equitable world. As my son told me, “You don't have a job, you have a crusade.” Design is a very powerful tool to create experiences that build trust, generosity, hope,and resilience in communities. I am inspired daily by the memory, advice and guidance of my mentors, especially Hugh Hardy and Malcolm Holzman (Hardy Holman Pfeiffer Associates), but also all of my peers in the social impact world. From them, I have learned that we can use design to create experiences larger than ourselves. With that lens, the world is full of discovery. I am inspired by traveling to large cities and small communities, observing how people gather, especially by going to music concerts and escapist experiences. I am inspired by how people in communities all over this country are creating support systems, from community gardens to holistic social enterprise communities, for those left out of the American dream.
I also have learned that the design process is also a very valuable skill set that we have to educate, create participatory experiences, and to use process to demonstrate why and how we all have to change the systems that we have applied in the past that have generated systemic injustices. Design, with its embedded practice of working toward a common goal with an iterative, critically constructive process, is very valuable to create change through collaboration and consensus.
Margaret leading a community engagement session.
What is one piece of advice you have for women who are just starting in the field?
Find your passion! Find your tribe! Trust your unique value and voice. And surround yourself with peers, mentors, and like-minded colleagues that share your life’s purpose. Always have an extra-curricular activity that connects you with your “tribe,” and gives you alternative experiences to work, and gives you communities that allow you to continue to grow and be supported. A career in this profession, in particular, takes tenacity, stamina, and resilience. And always, always, always, remember it is a practice. We practice architecture. When I remind myself of that, it is the resilience I often need as a business owner. It is always a path forward to improving what we do and who we are to make this world a more beautiful, prosperous, and just world.
“We believe intentional design can foster positive social change, strengthen social networks and cultural identities, and provide the forum for people to come together with shared dreams and shared lived experiences. ”