The Female Lead Page 13
Don’t get too hung up about being a woman. Just be a woman.
My advice to young women would be to take maths. Women who take maths earn one-third more than other women. Work very hard, get exceptional grades, be serious – decide what you want to do and pursue it – and speak up. If I were young today I’d take an engineering degree. Then I’d go to a firm and tell them I wanted to get on. I’d tell them I wanted a job on the income side of the business, not the expense side. Avoid being a cost. When I went into banking, I heard that some people who were putting around horrible things about me. But I was a big business-getter. I was responsible for people’s bonuses. They got over it.
Find mentors, who will talk to you, and sponsors, who will talk about you. Make sure you have your own little board of directors, people you trust. You don’t have to take their advice, but you have to hear it. Don’t get too hung up about being a woman. Just be a woman.
Work very hard, get exceptional grades, be serious – decide what you want to do and pursue it – and speak up.
I like cakes and ice cream. I used to hold a regular party called Bubbles and Sweets, which involved champagne and 20 different desserts. I still read the dessert part of the menu first. I am very passionate about food, beautiful food – but it can be street food – and I have a craving for caramel. I have written a review of all the best caramel ice creams in the world.
Barbara’s Object
My beautiful house in the South of France. It’s an early 19th-century mas originally built for the owners of one of Grasse’s perfume factories, and I bought it in 1999. We added a pool and a summer kitchen. We cook and eat there. It’s full of beautiful objects, especially mirrors in lovely Provençal frames, and you can sit on the terrace and look over a medieval village onto the Mediterranean. It always makes me happy but I don’t go there enough. I work hard and I have zero plans to retire. I want to die at my desk.
LADY BARBARA JUDGE
Lawyer, businesswoman and first female chair of the Institute of Directors
MICHELLE KAUFMANN
Michelle Kaufmann is an architect and the co-founder of Flux Factory, a software startup exploring the future of architecture. After studying at Iowa State University and Princeton, she began her career working for Frank Gehry. She then set up her own firm, MKD, specialising in designing and building healthy, durable and sustainable prefabricated homes, which led to her being described by Sierra magazine as ‘the Henry Ford of Green houses’. The recession hit that business, and she started collaborating with Google X, Google’s research and development arm (now part of Google’s parent company, Alphabet). Flux Factory is the first business to have been spun out of X, as it is now known. Using software and artificial intelligence, Flux aims to streamline and simplify architecture, and this, it is hoped, will have huge implications for the global need for affordable and sustainable housing. Michelle Kaufmann also runs the research and development arm for Google’s new campuses, working with the project’s architects to prototype new kinds of materials and structures.
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I grew up in Iowa, where there isn’t a lot of architecture. When I was about 12, my parents took me to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where a Frank Lloyd Wright house happened to be on display. That house was partly a response to what was beginning to be understood about prefabrication. I think that was the moment when I started wanting to be an architect. The house stayed in the museum for a while before being moved. Amazingly, the only other house they have ever had on display is one I designed, the Smart House, which showcases the best in sustainable living solutions.
We couldn’t find a house we could afford that we liked or that reflected our values. I’m an architect and my husband’s a carpenter, so we decided to build.
I have always thought about software alongside architecture. When I started working for Frank Gehry, software was the only way to construct the forms that he imagined. That was the first phase of my career. The second phase came when I moved to San Francisco and my husband and I were looking for a place to live. We couldn’t find a house we could afford that we liked or that reflected our values. I’m an architect and my husband’s a carpenter, so we decided to build. It’s a simple little home, which uses healthy materials and very little energy, and recycles water. At the time, in 2002–3, none of that was commonplace. We call it the Glidehouse because it has panels that I learned about from barns in Iowa. I say they slide but my husband says they glide.
Friends asked if we could design something similar for them and we started wondering if we could mass produce sustainable designs. At first we worked with factories run by other people. Later we bought our own to make the process more responsive and efficient.
The building industry uses more carbon and more energy than any other industry. Many houses are not even healthy – the materials used in construction are often carcinogenic and give off toxic gases. Over a billion people in the world live in substandard housing. Meanwhile, the population is projected to increase. So we need to build more homes, using fewer resources than we’ve done before, and they need to be affordable and healthy.
World-class buildings that resonate with their context and are low energy may not look at all alike but 80 per cent of their practices are very similar. The idea of Flux is to use computer science and artificial intelligence to code blocks that are re-composable and re-useable, so that architects don’t have to start from scratch. That means they can spend their time focusing on good design. The final goal is to be able to type in an address anywhere in the world and automatically generate a building code – an envelope for the building, plumbing, electricity, bathrooms, staircases – that will meet local building jurisdictions and will tell you in seconds what would be the costs if you decided to use, say, a particular kind of façade, and which will allow you to calculate not only the short-term costs but exactly when you would recoup your costs in energy savings.
There is increasing evidence to show that well-designed spaces have a significant effect on our ability to thrive. A lot of the work that aims to create social impact is being done by women.
This project has had a variety of reactions. Some architects have said it’s the worst idea ever. We have certainly had those responses. But once they understand how much easier it will be not having to argue over planning, because everything will be calculated to meet building regulations, they often take a different view. Currently, a lot of architecture involves counting – how many units, the length of kitchen cabinets, the width of the stairs – and that could all be done instantly. It’s true that draughtsmen’s jobs will be depleted because a computer will be able to do the work, but there will be more emphasis on design and thinking.
Software could also change the way architects are paid, to reflect the value they are creating. Currently, some architects, who really care about design, are choosy about the work they take on to the point that they will drive a shleppy car, while others who want to make decent money for their families don’t do designs they love but shopping malls and cookie-cutter things that pay well. Software could show the metrics for what the design is really delivering over the long term, meaning that architects could be rewarded for durable, sustainable design.
Architecture can have so much impact on how people feel and think. There is increasing evidence to show that well-designed spaces have a significant effect on our ability to thrive. A lot of the work that aims to create social impact is being done by women. Architecture generally has been a pretty male-dominated field and men still tend to be the star architects, with the big bold projects that win prizes. But there are more women than ever before in the field, and women often look at the human scale, at how architecture can benefit the lives of individuals.
My own ambition is to continue on the same trajectory and to find ways to make really good, thoughtful and healthy design accessible to everyone on the planet.
Michelle’s Object
My notebook. I keep it with me so I c
an capture a thought, or sketch through an idea, whether that be a floor-plan parti [a project’s guiding design idea] or a 3D view that evokes a sense of space. My notebook has a matte black cover and the pages have dots outlining a grid, so there is freedom, but with an underlying logic. Given that I use it every day, I usually finish a book every two months. I have used a similar notebook for 20 years, so I have three shelves filled with these books that have become like an encyclopaedia of my life and work. Every once in a while I will randomly pick up an older notebook. Seeing previous ideas and thinking is like having dinner with an old, dear friend, where you share in the memories but also carry on as though no time has passed.
MICHELLE KAUFMANN
Architect and co-founder, Flux Factory
SANDY POWELL
Sandy Powell is an award-winning costume designer. Raised in London, she did a foundation course at St Martin’s School of Art and then studied theatre design at the Central School of Art and Design. Her career began after dancer and choreographer Lindsay Kemp commissioned her to design and make the costumes for his show about ballet dancer Nijinsky. She went on to work in film after she was mentored by director Derek Jarman. To date, she has won three Academy Awards for Best Costume Design for her work on the movies Shakespeare in Love, The Aviator and The Young Victoria. In 2016 she was Oscar-nominated for both Carol and Cinderella. In 2011 she was awarded an OBE for services to the film industry.
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I was always creative. I had to be making something or drawing or sewing. My mother used to make our clothes and so, from an early age, I was involved in looking through pattern books and choosing fabric. I loved clothes and was really into drawing my own fashion magazines and hand-sewing outfits for my dolls. I had fashion dolls such as Sindy and Barbie as opposed to baby dolls. I made them mini versions of what I would like to wear myself and then, when I was 10 or 11, my mother taught me how to use a sewing machine and to follow simple patterns.
After school, at 18, I did the foundation course at St Martin’s in London. I loved it. It was my first taste of freedom and 1977–8 was an amazing year to be there because it was a real time of change – punk had happened and there were a lot of interesting things going on fashion-wise.
After my first year I moved to the Central School of Art and Design to do theatre design. I was interested in costume and performance and so felt that theatre work was what I wanted to do. I was there for two years but I wasn’t a very good student and I left before the end of the course. Lindsay Kemp was the reason. I met him in the summer holidays at the end of my second year, after he had advertised classes at the Pineapple dance studios in Covent Garden. I knew his work because, when I was still at school, I saw him performing Flowers and Salome at the Roundhouse in London. I’d become aware of him through being an avid David Bowie fan – Lindsay was one of his early collaborators. So when I saw that Lindsay was performing in London, I rushed off to see the shows. Then, five or six years later, I took myself off to dance classes in order to meet him.
My first-ever job was designing and making costumes for Lindsay’s show about the dancer, Nijinsky. It was incredible – a complete design job and something I’d never done before in my life. The show was in the studio theatre at La Scala in Milan and I just jumped on a plane and was thrown in at the deep end.
Back in the early 80s there was a lot more money coming out of the Arts Council for funding and I was making costumes for interesting experimental work, mostly performed at venues such as the ICA.
After that, I did more shows with Lindsay, which were always in either Spain or Italy, and also worked in London with a couple of fringe theatre companies, Lumiere & Son and Rational Theatre. Back in the early 80s there was a lot more money coming out of the Arts Council for funding and I was making costumes for interesting experimental work, mostly performed at venues such as the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts). Half the time I was also designing and building sets as well.
After three or four years, I decided that I preferred costumes to sets and that I wanted to do film. I was a film lover and had seen Derek Jarman’s Jubilee and The Tempest and thought that was the way to go. A friend met Derek in Heaven nightclub and procured his phone number for me, so I called and asked him to come to see a show that I’d done at the ICA. He came and from that moment on he took me under his wing. A year later, I was doing my first film with him, which was Caravaggio.
Two amazing people were my first teachers. I approached both of them and, luckily for me, they didn’t turn me away. I had the arrogance of youth, that’s for sure.
I am fortunate. Two amazing people were my first teachers. I approached both of them and, luckily for me, they didn’t turn me away. I had the arrogance of youth, that’s for sure. Cold-calling people and just going for it was fairly cheeky but, in a way, that’s what works. You’ve got to have the courage of your convictions and be prepared for failure.
Since then I’ve been lucky enough to work with great people on some great projects. They are all different. Some are absolutely enormous, such as Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, which was epic. Others, of which I am equally proud, are much smaller and challenging on a different level, finance-wise and time-wise.
If something doesn’t inspire me, I won’t do it, and there have been one or two jobs that I’ve started and then recognised that I am not excited and pulled out.
Being a costume designer is not an easy job. When you are working, you have to be completely and utterly dedicated and prepared to give up the rest of your life for the duration. If you didn’t have a passion for it, it would be arduous. I hope to carry on enjoying my work as much as I do. If something doesn’t inspire me, I won’t do it, and there have been one or two jobs that I’ve started and then recognised that I am not excited and pulled out. However much I might need the money, I would rather scrape by for a bit until I’m doing something that I really like.
Sandy’s Object
Bookshelves. My bookshelves contain all the books that I use over and over again. As far back as I can remember I have been interested in books and I collect reference books and books of images. The most important one is Gypsies by Josef Koudelka. It has beautiful black-and-white photographs of European gypsies and I pull it out time and time again. Derek Jarman gave me the book and a lot of the references were used in Caravaggio. The images have stuck with me and I have used them in so many different things.
When I am commissioned to do a film, I start looking at those books that are relevant period-wise or looks-wise but then I try to go through every single one on the shelves, because, even if the title of the book seems to be irrelevant, there is always something inspiring inside. At the moment, I am looking at pictures of coral or fish for texture. For Carol I got out all the fashion photography books from the 40s and 50s, and my old Sears catalogues came in useful. My books are irreplaceable and I would hate to be without them.
SANDY POWELL
Academy Award-winning costume designer
WEILI DAI
Having served as co-founder and president, and now a member of the Board of Directors, Ms Weili Dai is one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in the world. Most notably, Dai is the only woman co-founder of a global semiconductor company, Marvell Technology Group. Born in Shanghai, she emigrated to America with her family in 1979. Dai gained a degree in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she met her husband, Dr Sehat Sutardja, who was born in Indonesia. The couple married in 1985 and Dai began her career in software development. In 1995, she co-founded Marvell with Sutardja, who went on to be named Inventor of the Year in 2006 and is widely regarded as a pioneer of the modern semiconductor age. Marvell’s technology is an integral component of many of the world’s most important products in storage, networking, enterprise, communications, mobile computing, consumer and emerging markets. Dai’s work far extends beyond the local market as a driving force in expanding access to technology in the developing world through partn
erships with programmes such as One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).
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I am the youngest of three children and have two older brothers. My family was always fortunate and we had a very comfortable life in Shanghai. My parents were focused on our education, but also on empowering us so that we could forge ahead. To use a car analogy, I was the driver, but they were sitting in the passenger seat in case I needed support. So they didn’t help with my homework but, whenever I had a question, I could go to them. I remember hearing my mom telling neighbours, ‘My daughter is very smart, she knows how to play basketball.’ The fact that my mother thought I was smart because I could play a sport, and not just because I was good at school work, was a huge encouragement. I grew up feeling valued and had a ‘can do’ attitude.
Shanghai is different from the rest of China as it has a more westernised environment. So, in the late 70s, when my family moved to San Francisco to join my maternal grandparents, from a lifestyle point of view it was not much different. What was really challenging was my English. I love to communicate with people and I could only say, ‘How do you do?’ and ‘Thank you’ and ‘Don’t mention it.’ When we arrived, my grandfather said, ‘Oh Weili, living here is going to be wonderful even though you don’t speak much of the language, because Americans are very friendly.’ My parents taught us to be polite and, when I went to school or the supermarket and said, ‘Thank you,’ instead of the expected reply, ‘Don’t mention it,’ everybody said, ‘You’re welcome.’ So one day, I told my grandfather, ‘You were right – everyone says I am welcome here!’