Since 2002, Marc Fisher has been the ceaselessly energetic Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus Design and Facilities at the University of California Santa Barbara. Picture a fit and handsome version of Jason Alexander (“George” on “Seinfeld”). Witty, optimistic, and a born conversationalist, Fisher readily transforms obstacles into opportunities. A keen student of human nature, he is adept at the nuances of doing business in a large organization with many highly gifted and powerful players. At 46, he is a true connoisseur of the built environment. Fisher is capable of dealing with any scale of design, from a planter of ground cover on up to a campus master plan.
“I wanted to be an architect from the time I was five years old. I became really interested in landscape, because my father had an interest in a nursery for a short period of time,” says Fisher. He attended West Virginia University in landscape architecture as an undergraduate. He first worked for Dickinson Heffner Inc., a developer doing “a little bit of what I do now, a lot of master planning and also landscape design, everything down to picking furniture. It was not bad training.” (The firm owned most of the buildings around the Baltimore Washington International Airport.)
Fisher went back to school and got his Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After Penn, he worked in the Washington D.C. firm of Fisher-Gordon Architects (no relation), who did big houses and high-end retail. He came to California to work for Barton Myers, in whose office he met his current wife, architect and urban designer Kris Miller-Fisher, when they were both working on the Southwest Campus Carrying Capacity Study for UCLA.
After two years at Barton Myers’s office, Fisher spent six years working for Emmet L. Wemple and Associates Landscape Architects. Emmet Wemple was the universally acknowledged dean of L.A. landscape architects for decades. During that time, Fisher worked on landscapes for the J. Paul Getty Center, as well as the Anderson Graduate School of Management, the Science and Technology Research Building, and the Ackerman Student Union at UCLA. From there he went on to become first the Campus Landscape Architect, next the Director of Design, and then finally the Campus Architect for UCLA. He was in those UCLA roles for a total of seven years.
Speaking of the difference between landscape architecture and architecture as professions, Fisher notes that a landscape architect often has less direct access to the client and less creative and project control than the architect. Another difference is the factor of time: “A landscape is not really finished when it is contracted. You are dependent on the client and their stewardship of the landscape.”
Fisher believes that in his current role he has not left the discipline of architecture. “My job is like being a senior partner. A senior partner doesn’t draw everything on all his buildings. He makes things happen. Whether you are in charge of a movie studio or a college campus, you are managing construction, and you deal with all scales of design. You are involved with what things will look like in 20 or 30 years, as well as property maintenance details as small as weeding and selecting trash cans. This is a chance to build what you like and then manage and take care of it properly. That’s a little bit different from the typical role of an architect, when you finish the building, take your pictures, and hope for the best. My job is more like the landscape architect, who sees the project evolve over time.”
Fisher believes that design professionals who deal with him appreciate his role as a participant in design and management. “A good client makes for a better product. The architects and landscape architects like the advantage of dealing with a person on the client side who actually knows what they are talking about, who understands what they are trying to do.”
Speaking of his role at UCSB, Fisher says, “The key aspect of this particular position is to create a built environment that’s worthy of the natural setting. It’s a spectacular natural environment, and there’s an extraordinary level of academic achievement, but the built environment is not on par.” One of the opportunities the job offers is to make Isla Vista into a true college town. “We own all the edges of Isla Vista; the University can’t change the town core directly, but it will be affected, nonetheless, as we plan and influence its edges.” Current campus studies include some 3000 new units of housing for UCSB students, faculty, and staff.
Fisher believes that jobs like his should be better known as potential career paths for young architects. “It’s a good area of architecture,” he believes. “There are $800 million in new buildings on the campus, a great body of architecture being built in a short time. It’s a chance to work on a variety of building typologies, from housing to science labs.”
Marc Fisher, in his role as Associate Vice Chancellor, is a great match of an extraordinary individual to a key job at a major institution. There is no doubt that there are many improvements to come to the architecture and landscape architecture of UCSB because of Fisher’s identity and training as a design professional.
Author John Leighton Chase, Assoc. AIA, is Urban Designer for the City of West Hollywood and a member of the arcCA Editorial Board.
Originally published 2nd quarter 2005, in arcCA 05.2, “Other Business.”
